


Time to Rebuild (The Ruins You Left Behind)

by Social_Hemophilia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Clint hacker and computer programmer, Insomnia, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Nightmares, POV Clint Barton, POV Tony Stark, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, the Avengers are a very dysfunctional group
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:36:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 54,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Social_Hemophilia/pseuds/Social_Hemophilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about how Tony Stark helped Clint Barton get his feet back on steady ground, about how the Avengers became a fully, possibly less-dysfunctional team. It's about what SHIELD wants with the abandoned Chitauri weaponry and the dire consequences of old ghosts rising up to steal it. It's about the ghosts and shadows that hide within SHIELD itself. </p><p>This is the direct aftermath of the Chitauri Battle, with all its fresh scars and yellow bruises. This is the long, turbulent, seemingly never ending road that is recovery.</p><p>Inhale. </p><p>Exhale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "I told her once I wasn't good at anything. She told me survival is a talent." -Susanna Kaysen
> 
> Future pairings and character appearances will be tagged as the story progresses, also warnings are subject to change. Gotta keep the sense of mystery in the air ;)
> 
> Beta'd by Cheerfuldisposition

Clint wakes up gasping for breath more often than not these nights, a scream trying to claw its way out of his throat, his vision blurry and tinged with blue.

 

Tonight is no different, though the nightmare is.

 

He wakes suddenly; no warning, just a sharp intake of breath through his nose, right hand shakily sneaking to the underside of his pillow, tightly gripping the butt end of the gun tucked away.

 

Clint is no stranger to nightmares, to the horrors his own bent mind will concoct, and though he knows a gun is poor protection against the shadows of nightmares, it nevertheless provides him with an instinctive sense of security, of safety. And isn't that just a bit fucked, he thinks, that a _gun_ , an object meant to instill fear in the masses, a weapon of destruction, of _death_ , serves as his _security blanket?_ The universe, he decides, has a morbid and perverse sense of humor.

 

He’s never dreamed of killing Coulson before, of slicing through his chest as smoothly as he would cheese, the handle of Loki’s spear a cold thrumming weight in his hands. His brain had never before so readily provided these images. The thin line of blood spilling from the edges of thin lips. The bright red smeared mark left on the wall of the Helicarrier, a memory, a statement, an attack, a message; a promise.

 

It isn't until he shivers at the memory that he realizes he is drenched in a cold sweat, sweat slicked hair plastered to his face, clothes sticking to his skin. It’s been a month since the Chitauri attack, a month since his mind was assaulted, his body invaded, his will eviscerated.

 

His fingers are clenched around his gun in a painful white knuckled grip. He closes his eyes and, for a moment, forces himself to breathe in an attempt to cage the stirring panic rising within.

 

He’s safe.

 

He’s in his apartment in Stark Tower, or rather Avengers Tower— has been since a couple of weeks after the invasion.

 

He needs to remind himself.

 

There have been too many occasions where he’d woken up believing himself captured, in unfamiliar territory, would shoot at shadows, and commence his frantic search for Natasha; both his subconscious and conscious refuse to leave her behind, no matter the scenario.

 

Slowly releasing the gun, he untangles himself from his sheets and heads to the walk-in closet set in the east wall of his bedroom. It’s overwhelmingly spacious; Clint knows if he were to hang all his clothes there would still be too much space left over, too many open spaces. He takes off his sweat-drenched shirt, tosses it beside his open bag and rummages around for a clean fresh one. He hasn’t bothered unpacking.

 

It’s three in the morning and while normally he would head to the personal shooting range Stark built for him, he finds himself too worn, too tired, too weary. Instead, he makes his way out of his apartment and into the elevator, pressing the button that will take him down to the communal floor of the tower.

 

He isn’t sure what he is looking for when he arrives. If he were truthful with himself, he would admit to a lack of significant time being spent in this space, preferring to divide his time between his apartment, the range, and Nat’s floor. If he were truthful with himself, he would admit his choices had nothing to do with preference, and everything to do with avoidance.

 

The elevator opens to a part of the tower that is open like no other. There is a communal kitchen that spans the far west wall, a long steel dining table off to the side. The living room is in the center; the entertainment system spanning the north wall that is entirely made up of reinforced glass. Even though it’s three am, the floor isn’t shrouded in darkness like he expects. Rather, the lights are dim enough for him to easily find his way. He can see there is someone in the kitchen, sitting atop one of the chairs facing the lengthy counter. For a moment, he thinks about silently stepping back behind the steel doors of the elevator, making his way back up to the confines of his floor.

 

“That you, Legolas?” Clint hears, mentally berating himself for ever leaving his floor at all.

 

Ambling out of the elevator, he silently makes his way over to the billionaire, taking up the empty seat beside him.

 

“Hey, Stark,” he says, his tone neutral. Clint learned long ago never to show his weaknesses, to keep his walls up at all times, regardless of who was around. Coulson and Natasha were the only exceptions to the rule, thus living proof of the rule itself.

 

With a snort, Stark replies, turning to him, tumbler in hand, “We’ve saved the world from an evil destructive horde of aliens and one crazed megalomaniac god, pretty sure we entered first name territory somewhere way back up the road there, sweet cheeks. Probably ‘round the time said megalomaniac god stupidly began attacking New York, but hey, who’s keeping track of the interpersonal interactive progress of Nick Fury’s ragtag superhero team?”

 

Clint knows Stark isn’t drunk for all he sounds like it; he read Nat’s character file on him, knows Stark is an ingenious rambler, the type to talk endlessly without saying anything of use, without revealing a single thing of himself, words spewing from his mouth on every exhaled breath, going off on expert tangents winded and lengthy enough to distract even skilled interrogators. But Clint sees better from a distance, and even though he hasn’t spent much time with anyone from his team other than Natasha, doesn’t mean he hasn’t been watching, hasn’t been paying attention to the new people he is surrounded by. He can hear the hidden words of Stark’s rant, _we may have saved the world together, but we are not a team._ As bitter as the thought may be, Clint can’t help but agree.

 

His shoulders tense slightly when he finds a full crystal tumbler of whiskey being placed right in front of him. Picking it up (more out of habit rather than an intention of drinking it) and swirling the liquid content inside, he finally turns to Stark, straightforwardly meeting his gaze. He looks tired, Clint decides. Even in this dim lighting Clint can see the weary lines that surround his mouth, the dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes, the creases of his faded Black Sabbath shirt, the grease stains marring his torn up jeans. Glancing around, he sees an empty mug—of what Clint presumes was coffee—a little ways away from Stark atop the kitchen counter. He looks disheveled in a way only being cooped up in his workshop for innumerable hours in an engineering binge produces.

 

“You look like shit, Stark. When’s the last time you got a decent night’s sleep?”

 

Stark runs a hand through his Byzantine hair, “Huh, can’t really remember. Few days ago maybe? Been struggling with a recent project. Honestly, Merida, did a bow and arrow have to be your weapon of choice? According to SHIELD you’re the ‘world’s greatest marksman,’ couldn’t you just have chosen a pretty gun and been done with it, instead of going all antique on my ass? I swear, you people enjoy making my life even more difficult than it already is. Uh, you gonna drink that?” He finishes with a pointed look at the still full tumbler Clint is holding in his hand.

 

Looking down at the glass, Clint makes a decision he will later blame on impeded mental functioning directly resulting from his severe lack of sleep. “I, uh, don’t really drink,” he states somewhat awkwardly, setting the tumbler down quietly. He’s thankful the engineer decidedly ignores the slight tremors running through his hands. “I also have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about, Stark. What does it matter to you that I prefer a bow and arrow to a gun?”

 

“You really don’t pay attention to our briefings, do you? Can’t say I blame you, though. Hell, I zone out more often than not—I have far better things to do with my time than listening to Fury talking about his plans to make us a more cohesive team and all that fun jazz. But I would’ve thought the part of me putting myself in charge of the Avengers’ weapons was something that would’ve filtered in through that tiny bird brain of yours there, Katniss.”

 

Clint remembers; the briefing was last week, held in one of the many conference rooms within the vast confines of SHIELD Remembers Stark saying he didn’t trust SHIELD with their weapons, claiming he could do a better job of not only fixing them, but improving them. Rogers was even inclined to agree, muttering something about Phase Two Clint didn’t understand and didn’t want to. Stark basically took over the R&D Avengers Initiative sector, much to the grim disappointment of the SHIELD scientists. But Clint designed his own bow and arrows, only sending his design specs to SHIELD’s R&D department in order for them to produce them. He thought Stark knew that.

 

“I design my own bows and arrows, Stark. No need to worry your pretty little genius head over little ole me,” he ends in a slight mocking tone.

 

At the mention of this, Stark’s eyebrows predictably rise up, perilously close to his hairline. Clint receives a similar reaction every time someone finds out he designs his own weapons. He typically finds them a hilarious sight and can hardly curve his impulse of telling people just how utterly ridiculously they look, except this time he feels none of that. He feels tired, tired of having so few people believe he is actually capable of such feats, that he is more than a mindless hired gun. Even when he was a freelance assassin he didn’t just take any job available, not even when he could have certainly used the money. If a job felt wrong, off in any way, if he felt the mark didn’t deserve to meet the end of one of his arrows, he never took it.

 

“Seriously? You telling me all those trick arrows of yours are your own design? Damn. I knew you had a great tactical mind, what with the attack on the Helicarrier and all—great virus there by the way—but didn’t know you had a knack for engineering there, Legolas. What other fun stuff has Super Secret Spy School taught you?”

 

Clint is taken aback, struggling to hang on to what’s left of his composure. He shouldn’t be surprised, Nat’s report gave the acute impression Stark was one of a kind. Clint thinks he is starting to see what she might have meant by that, even if she initially may have meant it as an insult.

 

“Uh, thanks,” he answers a bit hesitantly. “This wasn’t something they taught me though, it’s just something I’ve kind of always done since I took up my bow. What’s giving you so much trouble, anyways?” He doesn’t mention that growing up in the circus he had to make most of his arrows by hand because there wasn’t enough money to purchase a new set for him when the old wore out.

 

“I’ve been trying to modify your explosive arrows, give the blast a wider radius, you know, more boom for less buck. But admittedly, I don’t know enough about bows and arrows and your shooting style to know how much weight I can add onto either the shaft or arrowhead until the system is destabilized to the point where you can’t make a straight shot.”

 

“Are you going for manually denoted arrows or are you designing the type that go off on impact?”

 

“Manually, can’t have stray arrows blowing up things that shouldn’t go boom—oh, don’t look at me like that, I know you have perfect aim and all that, but that’s no defense against someone just swatting away one of your arrows out of their way, now is it? What does it matter, anyways?”

 

“Manually detonated arrows have the extra weight of the receiver. If the weight is already too much on the arrowhead or the upper part of the shaft, then you can add the receiver to the nock and run a thin wire down the inside of the shaft to meet the explosive at the end. What—” Clint trails off at the slight manic look he can see on Stark’s face as he slides off his stool, promptly downs the rest of his drink, a sleek black StarkPad seemingly conjuring in his other hand. His stomach curls uncomfortably; Natasha’s warned him about that look.

 

“JARVIS, fire up the workshop, pull up the schematics of Hawkeye’s new arrows, and let’s have some music playing, the night is far from over, babe.”

 

“As you wish, my dear,” responds the AI with what Clint suspects is a hint of fondly exasperation. 

 

“Stark what are you—”

 

“Come on, Legolas,” he says, tugging Clint by the arm down the dim lighted hall to the elevator. “You’re going to appreciate this, I’ve got all the pretty little toys to fulfill your heart’s desires.”

 

Once in the elevator, they immediately begin the descent to their destination without having even pressed a button. Clint will never admit just how impressed he is with Stark’s AI; JARVIS is by far the most advanced AI out there, and being impressed by the AI meant he was impressed with Stark himself which, yeah he was (it was hard not to be), but the man had a big enough ego as it was; this was not a fire Clint needed to feed.

 

A minute later, the doors open to reveal a wall of, what Clint is astonished to note, is clear adamantium glass. Where Stark got enough of the rare and expensive material and how he managed to convert it into a clear glass form, is something Clint thinks Fury is dying to know so he can possibly cover the entire Helicarrier with a thin layer of it.

 

At the door, Stark types in a code onto a touchscreen panel set off to the side, places his hand against a scanner, and leans in to have his retina scanned.

 

Seeing his raised eyebrow, Stark says, “I decided to upgrade security after—well yeah. Anyways, after you Merida,” he finishes stepping off to the side, allowing Clint to walk in through the now open door.

 

If there were a physical representation of Stark’s mind, Clint thinks, his lab would fit the bill. The space is largely open and vast. There is a steel “U” shaped workbench set in the middle, a single sleek black leather chair set before it, holographic screens floating above. Bits and pieces of tech are strewn about everywhere, among them numerous arrowheads and shafts. Down on the south side, there are two diagonal lines of various model cars; Clint recognizes a 2011 white Tesla Roadster and a matte metallic blue Jaguar XKR-S Coupe. AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)” blares from the speakers. Clint wonders if the floors and walls are reinforced with adamantium as well.

 

“So, about these receivers,” Starks begins, strutting to the workbench, flicking his hand, and enlarging the holographic schematics in his hands, “you said to place them on the arrow’s nock if I had too much weight in front. How much is too much weight here, Barton? And how much can these receivers weigh if I’m placing them on the nocks? I can’t imagine the tail end of an arrow can handle that much weight and still fly steadily.”

 

Clint glances at the schematics hanging in the air, “Are you making the arrow shafts out of fiberglass, Stark?”

 

Without bothering to look up from his own set of schematics, Stark replies, “Yeah, why? Fiberglass is great, sturdy material. Not as easy to shatter.”

 

Clint shakes his head. “It’s too heavy to be adding all of these extra things onto it. Besides, fiberglass is best for bow fishing. Make the shafts out of carbon, it’s lighter, and allows you to adjust the weight as needed. Do you have the schematics for my bow?”

 

“Of course,” he replies in a slightly offended tone, pulling up another holographic screen and tossing it Clint’s way. 

 

“Are you playing AC/DC’s greatest hits or something here, Stark?” Clint asks, letting a hint of amusement enter his tone, when the sound of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” start coming through the workshop speakers.

 

“Why, yes Merida. Nice of you to recognize. I’m relieved to know you aren’t a completely uncultured swine like the rest of ‘em.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Clint begins looking over the specs for his bow and the new explosive tipped arrows Tony was planning, making corrections and adjustments where he sees fit, explaining to Tony that any arrow he uses has to be compatible with the design and feel of his bow. They spend the next several hours like this, working on design specs, Tony sitting in his chair, Clint sitting atop the bench, AC/DC’s greatest hits blasting through the speakers. It’s been a while since Clint has been able to focus so intently on something other than his shooting since the invasion; he welcomes the relaxed feel of his muscles and the razor sharp focus of his mind; he can breathe down here.

 

When Clint finally checks the time, it is eight in the morning. Over the last five hours he and Stark have figured out the weight parameters for the new explosive arrows and even managed to commence the bare schematic designs for EMP arrows as well as for ones tipped in acid (Clint will admit to feeling weary of carrying those around).

 

They’ve progressed from AC/DC to Led Zeppelin, and the initial sultry tones of “What Is And What Should Never Be” are the only sounds within the workshop. Clint looks up when he hears a whirring sound, only to find one of Stark’s robots headed his way, a small white something in it’s claw like hand. Finding a small white bottle being precariously set next to his thigh he glances over at Stark, he can see the man is seemingly immersed in the schematics in front of him; thankfully, Clint knows better.

 

“What are these?” he asks, picking the bottle up and reading the label.

 

“Sleeping pills,” Stark replies, eyes never straying from the images in front of him. “Don’t really know how they expect us to sleep like babies after everything that happened. These, uh, usually help me, when I can’t sleep, which tends to be most nights, but that’s beside the point. Take ‘em. I have more. Poppin’ two usually does me right in. Now thank Dum-E before he dumps a smoothie on you, don’t think he won’t, the cheeky little bastard.”

 

Gripping the bottle tightly in one hand, Clint looks over at Dum-E who—for a robot—strikingly resembles a puppy waiting for a treat after delivering the newspaper. “Uh, thanks, Dum-E.” He’s met with a high-pitched whirring sound.

 

“He doesn’t seem as advanced as JARVIS,” Clint comments, watching the bot make his way around the workshop picking up random scraps of metal and tech here and there.

 

“That’s because he’s not,” Stark pipes up, swiveling his chair to look over at Clint. “I built Dum-E when I was a teenager at MIT, must have been like seventeen, I think. JARVIS came a few years after, then You and Butterfingers.”

 

“Of course you were a seventeen year-old at MIT.” He knows this is right around the time Stark lost his parents.

 

Stark shrugs and swivels his chair back to continue working on the schematics for the new acidic arrow.

 

“Tony?” Clint asks, a well of unidentifiable emotion rising within him.

 

At the mention of his name, the engineer turns to look back at Clint, an unreadable expression on his face.

 

“Thanks,” Clint says, allowing the honesty and gratitude he feels to color his tone.

 

Tony’s brown eyes soften a little as he nods, reaching in front of him and enlarging the schematics to the acid arrows.

 

“So, if we’re really going to try these arrows out, we’ll need to make sure your quiver can hold all of these different arrows together without explosions happening and acid dripping down your back.”

 

“Wait, how are you even planning on containing the acid within the arrows themselves?”

 

“I was thinking a small container lined with Alloy 20. It’s corrosion resistant and-”

 

“Solves the problem of having any unwanted potential cracks. Smart.”

 

“Resident genius here, of course it’s smart.”

 

“But if you’re planning on putting this container on the arrowhead or upper shaft, we’re going to have to find something to place on the nock or lower part of the shaft to balance out the extra weight of the alloy. And just how much sulfuric acid are we planning on me carrying on my person? Because I gotta tell ya, the idea of having acid dripping down my back is worse than the idea of having the Hulk punch me straight in the face.”

 

“Awww and ruin your dashing good looks, Legolas? I took you for a vainer man than that.”

 

“Fuck you, Stark,” Clint shoots back, laughing; he can’t seem to help himself. “Not all of us can afford great plastic surgeons to make us look all pretty again after getting our faces bashed in.”

 

“Ah, you wound me, Merida,” Tony says, holding a hand to his chest, above his arc reactor, while gasping as if actually wounded, mirth filling his eyes. “I’m au naturel, baby,” he continues, with a wink, a smirk on his lips.

 

“Anyhow,” continues Tony, flicking his hands, gathering all of the files, “how ‘bout we continue this some other time? Pepper should be coming over in the next hour and I desperately need a shower, I don’t even want to know what I smell like.”

 

“Exceedingly gross, Sir, the essence of motor grease and oil hangs about you,” comes JARVIS’ voice.

 

“Dammit, JARVIS You’re supposed to lie in order to preserve my self-esteem,” Tony shoots back.

 

“My sincerest apologies, Sir, but you have not programmed me to lie,” continues the AI and Clint can swear he hears a tinge of sarcasm in the words.

 

Tony stops mid-stride for a moment and then guffaws. “Ok, now I know you’re just fucking with me JARV”

 

Clint hops down from his perch on the workbench, pockets the bottle of sleeping pills, and makes his way to the door alongside Tony. “You programmed your AI to lie?” he asks, because that seems like a counterproductive thing to do to a system also serving as your primary form of security.

 

“Technically, no,” Tony replies, chuckling as he goes through his security measures to lock down his lab (apparently only a code is needed to lock the doors), “he’s a learning AI and for years all he had was me to learn from. You can only imagine the things he picked up from a twenty something-year-old Tony Stark. Okay, lets shut it down, Jay.”

 

The lab room immediately grows dark. At first, Clint thinks it’s a result of JARVIS turning off all the lights, but upon closer inspection he can see that it’s the adamantium glass that has grown dark. Clint can’t help but widen his eyes in surprise and look over at Tony.

 

“After Vanko and Hammer,” Tony explains, a strange light in his eyes, “well let’s just say I went through a creative engineering binge. A lot of interesting things came out of the weeks I spent holed up in my workshop. Not even Pepper could get me to come out, and she’s usually the only one who can manage it. Don’t know how. Miracle, how our relationship didn’t crash and burn then, considering how little she saw of me. Anyways, Fury doesn’t know the half of it, for all that the bastard keeps trying to hack me again.”

 

Even though he can’t see him, Clint can hear the smug smirk on his lips. Running a hand through his disheveled hair, he waits until they step into the elevator to say, “Fury never technically hacked you. That was, uh, that was me actually.”

 

“An engineer _and_ a hacker? You’re a man after my own heart, Barton. I swear, if I wasn’t with Pepper,” he ends, waggling his eyebrows in Clint’s direction. “That something Super Secret Spy School taught you or just another thing you knew how to do and they just took advantage?”

 

“The latter,” Clint says sniggering, not bothering to pretend he isn’t amused by Tony. “Wasn’t aware you played for both teams, Stark. Think your file needs to be updated.”

 

“Haven’t you heard, sweet cheeks? I play for any team that has a fine enough ass. One of these days,” Tony says, giving Clint a searching glance, “you are going to tell me how you learned all these things. I’ve read your file too, you know, but it’s like you didn’t exist before SHIELD. I could do a more extensive search, widen the parameters, hack a few government agencies, but that seems too invasive and, while others may not believe this, I do actually have boundaries—I just tend not to heed them. Besides, it would defeat the purpose of this whole living together thing we’ve got going on. The dear Director himself wants us to bond as a team, after all.”

 

That’s because I was a ghost before SHIELD, Clint thinks. Instead he says, “We’ll see about that, Stark,” and walks out of the elevator onto the living room of his floor.

 

When Clint moved into Stark tower it wasn’t to a small bland one-bedroom apartment like the one he had moved into when he first joined SHIELD what seems like eons ago. Apparently, Tony had each floor customized to each Avenger; Clint knows there is a reason Tony gave him one of the highest floors available—second only to Tony’s. Vaguely, he wonders whether Rogers’ floor is themed in 1940’s era style.

 

Clint’s floor is all open spaces, tall archways, walls painted in a soft brown color that take on a light earthy hue when the sunlight enters through the large polished plate glass windows. His own personal kitchen is set against the east side of the wide floor plan. A soft ivory sofa sits in front of a large flat screen tv over by the west side, and as Clint roams his eyes over it he is unsurprised at finding a bare footed Natasha perched atop it, long legs placed perfectly in a lotus position, a well worn book opened between them, red hair framing her face.

 

Without looking up from her book, she softly states, “You weren’t in your room.”

 

“I was down in Tony’s workshop.” At the lifted eyebrow she sends his way, he amends, “He needed some help designing some new arrows, seeing as he knows jack shit about them.” He knows her well enough to tell the slight pinch of her lips means she is holding back a smile; he also knows she noticed the use of Stark’s first name.

 

She cocks her head, “Doesn’t he know you design your own weapons?”

 

He shrugs, walking over and sitting on the arm of the couch, acting like the entire situation is no big deal. “Now he does.”

 

His casual remark results in her sitting up even straighter, untangling her legs, closing her book, shifting her body in his direction, a searching yet cautious look in her eyes because she _knows._ He doesn’t let other people design his weapons, even held out for months against allowing SHIELD scientists to produce them; Coulson had to convince him that he simply wouldn’t have the time to create them himself before he relented. He is too tired and hollow to think about the reasons he has deemed Tony an exception to the rule.

 

Nudging her head in the direction of his bedroom, face a blank mask once again, she says, “Go change, we’re sparring.”

 

Groaning inwardly, he heads towards his open bedroom, not sparing a glance to the mess that is his bed, in search of his own workout tights and a t-shirt. He should have known just from the way she was dressed: black workout tights and an orange sports bra. It was Monday morning, what better thing had they to do at this time than spar? They haven’t had a mission since the invasion took place (Clint suspects Fury believes they’ve earned an extended leave of absence for helping save the world) and while it feels odd to have as much down time as they do, Clint is actually somewhat enjoying the free time. He can’t remember the last time they were free to spar on a Monday morning.

 

A few minutes later, they are walking through the glass doors of the expansive communal team gym. There is a formidable boxing ring taking up the far southwest corner, a Kevlar reinforced punching bag off to the side (everyone knows it was especially designed by Tony for Rogers on account of his post-serum strength), a rock-climbing wall spanning the entire east wall, and a sparring mat in the center of it all. They have the gym all to themselves at this time; Clint knows Tony is busy getting ready for Pepper’s arrival, Roger’s has already gone a few rounds with the punching bag and is now out for his ritual morning run, Bruce isn’t one for using the gym unless it’s a team workout, and Thor does not seem to believe in rising before noon unless there is an emergency requiring the god’s presence.

 

Clint and Natasha both set their towels and water bottles off to one side of the mat, walk towards the middle of it, and immediately take up a fighting stance. He turns his body slightly to the side, left leg facing the front, right leg off to the back, knees moderately bent, hands closed into fists held faintly below eye level. Natasha’s stance mirrors his, except that her hands are open in front of her, palms parallel to each other. Her stance allows for quicker movements and easier take downs. They immediately start circling each other, each searching for an opening.

 

Natasha fights like she's been trained for it (she was), all sleek lines and unhesitating fluid movements and perfect stance. Her every move is controlled and perfectly executed, rarely resorting to dirty tricks, because she's just that good. She’s both beautiful and deadly when she fights; barely breaks a sweat when fighting a normal person. Clint, on the other hand, is all about dirty fighting. Growing up an orphan and in the circus provided him with the life lessons that resulted in him being a decent fighter out of sheer necessity rather than want. His stance isn't perfect, but it's strong. His hits may not be as controlled, but they always still seem to hit their mark. Natasha fights, and she makes it look like a well-choreographed dance, as simple and smooth as inhaling a breath. Clint makes it look like a bar fight. He's gotten better though, since sparring with her. His lines are sleeker, his hits quicker; with her he can fall into the dance she seems to effortlessly choreograph. But still, when in the thick of a difficult fight, he gets uncontrolled, loses the poise Natasha taught him, and the dirty fighting from his younger days emerges.

 

When Natasha lunges, he immediately moves to block it, planting his feet, and quickly sidestepping out of her range. They move like this for several minutes, one of them lunging forward with a punch or a kick and the other either blocking the hit or sidestepping it. This is their own personal dance and Clint revels in it. Sparring with Natasha never fails to clear his mind of the perpetual shadows that lurk within. When they first began sparring together, Natasha would beat him flat down onto the mat within the first five minutes for all of SHIELD to witness. Clint cannot recall a more humbling experience. Now, several years into their partnership, the iconic moment is still talked about in the halls of SHIELD, the difference now, though, is that he can hold his own -- for a lot longer at least. He’s sent staggering when Natasha lands a strong roundhouse kick squarely onto his shoulder, and as he struggles for just those few seconds to regain his footing, Natasha seizes her opening, twisting her body in the air. Clint, thinking she is going for the classic restraining thigh maneuver, plants his feet a slight width apart, puts his hands up, palms open, in the hopes of catching a leg, when she pushes off of him only to quickly land behind him and swiftly kick his feet right from under him. Natasha may not fight dirty, but she is _sneaky,_ which may actually be worse.

 

He’s been laying flat on his back atop the mat floor for a couple of seconds, catching his breath, when his line of vision is filled with two red and yellow objects.

 

“Here,” Natasha says, shoving what he can now see is a small strawberry yogurt and a banana at him, along with a plastic spoon. “Eat.”

 

Wordlessly, he sits up, legs outstretched in front of him, and begins to unwrap the foil covering of the yogurt. He knows Natasha worries about him, more so now than before; he’s had rough missions before, but he’s never been unmade like this. She has. Every morning she arrives on his floor, seeking him out, making sure he eats, even when he insists he isn’t hungry (she knows all too well how his body responds to stress), making sure he showers instead of just laying in a blanket tangled heap in his bed all day like he wishes he could, desperately trying to ameliorate the hollow feeling in his chest.

 

“Thanks, Nat,” he says as he finishes the yogurt, grabs the banana, and begins peeling back the skin. She’s sitting cross-legged in front of him.

 

“Clint,” she says so softly he almost misses it, his name barely a whisper leaving her lips. “It’ll get easier,” she continues, in that same faint tone; he can’t bring himself to meet her eyes. “Getting unmade like you did, it’s hard, possibly one of the worst things anyone can ever experience. I know you feel like you can’t trust yourself, like you’re drifting, your feet on unsteady ground; putting those pieces of yourself back together will take time. Just know that you can trust me, when you feel like you can’t trust yourself.”

 

He looks up at her now, meets her green eyes directly, because she has to know, must know. “I trust you, Nat,” he tells her, voice clear and firm, “I never stopped trusting you.”

 

“Then talk to me, Clint.” Any other time he would have joked about never having heard this imploring tone from her. Distantly, a part of his mind wonders how messed up he must be for her to get the closest she does to begging. “We’ve been here for weeks now. I know you still haven’t unpacked.”

 

“I can’t talk about this now, Nat,” he says, eyes dropping to the floor, running a hand through his damp hair.

 

“Clint.”

 

“I’m...Christ, I’m still putting myself together here, Tasha. I don’t...I don’t know how to come back from this, okay? I know it wasn’t me, but fuck, I remember it all Nat, and I can’t… Fuck.” He’s vaguely aware he has crushed what remained of the banana in his hand.

 

Grabbing his free hand in her smaller softer one, she waits until he looks up at her to say, “We’ll figure it out, okay? Don’t run from this, Clint.” He looks down at their joined hands, at the scrapes still healing across both their knuckles, at the tiny thin scars that litter their fingers from missions past.

 

He can hear the hidden words: _don’t leave._ He isn’t shocked, she knew, of course she did. He may see better from a distance, but Natasha didn’t need distance; she saw all. He’s thought about bolting, about grabbing his unpacked bag in the middle of the night, simply slipping out of the tower, taking out money from his numerous bank accounts, and holing himself up in one of his safe houses. The need is a restless itch against his skin, yearning to be scratched; no matter how open the spaces of the tower may be, he still feels trapped, confined, like an animal in a cage. He came here with one foot already out the door. He’s aware SHIELD is keeping an eye on him, monitoring him for any signs of Loki’s spell reemerging. Keeps receiving summons to head over on to medical, claiming he needs to be examined since he neither slept nor ate while under the Asgardian god’s control. It’s bullshit; Clint knows they are itching for a blood sample, which is why he throws each summons in the trash as soon as it’s in hand. He remembers “ _You have heart”_ and closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.

 

Clint comes back to himself when Natasha hastily yanks him up to his feet by the arm, “Come on. Let’s get you a real meal.” Her tone is neutral, it’s usual firm cadence.

 

They make their way over to the communal kitchen, Natasha’s blatant attempt to get him to socialize. When they arrive, however, it is to the sound of two rising voices; one of them clearly Tony’s. Clint glances over at Natasha; her expression is blank, her displeasure only expressed by the down turned corners of her lips.

 

Pepper and Tony are standing in the middle of the kitchen; Pepper in a black pencil skirt, silver blouse, striking black and red Louboutin heels, her hair in a simple elegant ponytail. Tony, on the other hand, is wearing a black AC/DC t-shirt, jeans, and is barefooted; he is leaning against the steel kitchen countertop, cradling a mug of coffee in his hands that proclaims, “Mechanical engineers do it with a ball and detent,” a scowl on his face.

 

“I don’t need to be there, Pepper, I don’t want to. Hell, that was the whole point of making you CEO! So I wouldn’t have to deal with these things.”

 

“Tony. You may not be CEO anymore, but SI is still yours. Not only are you majority shareholder, you’re Tony Stark, you’re the face of SI and head of R&D. Since terminating weapons productions, a good percentage of our main revenue comes from what you produce Tony, you _know_ this,” she retorts, sounding exasperated.

 

“Pep, Pepper, Pep. Come on. Let’s just forget this, go to dinner, spend some time in the city, you and me.”

 

“Yes, let’s go to dinner, the _board of directors’ dinner._ Tony—”

 

“Hey there, Wonder Twins!” Tony exclaims loudly when he notices their arrival, cutting Pepper off mid sentence.

 

Hand rubbing the bridge of her nose, Pepper says, “I expect to see you at that dinner, Tony, the board members need to know you are still dedicated to this company, _your_ company,” and stalks off towards the elevator, sending an “Agents Barton, Romanoff,” along with a polite nod in their direction, a strained smile on her lips.

 

“Trouble in paradise, Stark?” Clint mockingly asks once the CEO is out of earshot.

 

“Just, you know, typical billionaire problems—oh wait, I guess you wouldn’t know,” Tony shoots back. “Anyways, nothing to see here kids, move along.”

 

“You do know you’re not that much older than us, right Stark?” Tasha says, walking towards the refrigerator.

 

“Semantics, Romanoff,” he says, waving away her words with a flick of a hand, as he pours more coffee into his mug. “Or should I say Romanova?” he asks as an afterthought.

 

“Oh, god, please tell me there’s still more coffee left,” Clint hears Banner speak up. He’s standing at the edge of the kitchen, in rumpled pants and a simple light blue t-shirt, faint stubble along his chin and cheeks. Clint frowns; he hadn’t heard him approaching.

 

“Thank god,” Banner says as Tony wordlessly passes him the half filled coffee pot and a green mug with the words “I break physics on the daily: I defy the principle of mass conservation” etched on its side. Clint wonders whether Tony created—or rather commissioned the creation—of similar mugs for the rest of the Avengers.

 

“Stay up all night down at the lab again, Bruciekins?” Tony asks the other scientist grinning.

 

With a yawn, Bruce replies, “Yeah. Started examining the molecular structure of the Chitauri. I sent the analysis over to you.”

 

“Remind me again why we, a mechanical engineer and a physicist, are doing work better suited for a biologist?” Tony inquires aloud.

 

“Because you and the good Doctor over here are—dare I say—two of the best minds in the world, and besides you have the clearance. Minimizes paperwork,” Clint helpfully supplies, handing over the carton of eggs to Natasha who is cooking at the stove. When she sends him a stern look, sighing, he unearths a pan of his own from the numerous cabinets and begins cracking eggs.

 

“Not to mention, you do hold a PhD in chemical engineering, Tony,” Bruce adds.

 

“Seriously dude, how many degrees do you have?” Clint asks as he makes eggs just the way he likes them: sunny side up.

 

Looking over at Tony, he sees him standing next to Bruce, sipping his coffee, a thoughtful look on his face. “Huh, five, maybe? I’m not sure. I took a vacation once, got bored, and just went back to school for a while. Gained a few degrees that summer.”

 

Both Clint and Bruce stare unabashedly at Tony, he even earns a searching glare from Natasha.

 

“What’s everyone staring at Stark for?” Says Steve standing on the outskirts of the kitchen, looking from Tony to Bruce to Clint to Natasha and back again, confusion plainly written in the lines of his face. He’s wearing beige khaki shorts and a white t-shirt, his blonde hair still wet from his shower.

 

“Don’t worry Capsicle, they’re only admiring my spectacular brilliance.”

 

Clint snorts, returning to his task, “You wish, Stark. We’re just wondering at how hopeless you are that you can’t even manage to take a proper vacation.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Tony frown at this and, for a moment, he wonders whether he alluded to something negative in the engineer’s life. But as soon as the thought crosses his mind, Tony is all smiles, talking with Bruce about the Chitauri’s molecular structure.

 

“Since when do you cook for the rest of the team?” Clint curiously asks his partner while he cracks another egg into the pan. It isn’t uncommon for them to cook for each other, especially during joint missions, but cooking for the rest of the Avengers, is well, admittedly odd, and definitely not something he thought he would ever see her doing, not to mention time consuming.

 

“It’s my day to cook breakfast,” she replies calmly, flipping the pancakes in her long flat pan.

 

“Okay...since when do we have scheduled cooking days? And why wasn’t I told about this?”

 

“Because before now, Bird Brain, you’ve been holed up in your own floor.” Tony says, easily jumping into their conversation.

 

Before Clint can open his mouth, Tony continues, “And to answer your initial question, we started doing this after we realized that without these joint meal times there is a distinct possibility we may not see each other, even though we live together. Seriously, during that first week here, Bruce was the only one of you I saw, and that was only because we’re working on this Chitauri stuff for Fury. Figured the least we could is meet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

 

A part of Clint wants to protest this, hide himself away from these people, but then he remembers last night, and the sleeping pills Tony wordlessly gave him, no questions asked, and Tasha’s soft voice promising they would figure this out, asking him not to run. He opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) to find Natasha’s own clear steady ones. Taking a breath, he says, “So, when is it my day to make breakfast?”

 

He expects Natasha’s subtle, yet warm, smile. What he doesn’t expect is for Tony to clap him on the shoulder, almost spilling coffee on his arm, saying, “Welcome to the Avengers Cooking Club, Katniss. Just a PSA here, Thor and I can’t really cook, so we’re only ever in charge of dinner, and on those days we get take out. Fast. Easy. And, the kitchen still stands at the end of the day. Win-win all around. Trust me.” He’s pathetically proud for not flinching at the unforeseen physical contact.

 

As if roused from his slumber by the sound of his name, Thor appears in the elevator, and promptly makes his way towards the kitchen. It’s strange, Clint thinks, seeing Thor outside of his armor, in jeans, and a too tight red plaid button down shirt, his hair tied off at the back of his neck in a small ponytail, a few free thin strands framing his face. The scene before him is unexpectedly domestic in a way Clint hadn’t thought possible.

 

“Good morning, friends! Ah, it seems the Hawk has left the nest. I take it you will be joining us for what I’m sure will be a fine breakfast, will you not Clinton?” Thor asks merrily, sporting an easy smile, as he sits down in one of the chairs at the table.

 

“Morning there, Point Break,” Tony calls out, smirking, tapping Thor on the shoulder as he passes him.

 

“Call me Clint, big guy,” Clint replies grinning. Thor seems to have that effect on everyone; people can’t help but be friendly towards him. Maybe it has to do with his god status, he thinks.

 

It takes another twenty minutes before he and Natasha finish cooking breakfast and another ten before everyone is settled, scattered across various seats and surfaces, talking and eating. He sits at the kitchen table along with Natasha and Thor, who is enthusiastically telling them Asgardian war stories. Thor, Clint realizes, is easy to talk to; undemanding in his conversation, filling in the blank silent spaces with ease. In this aspect, the Asgardian resembles Tony; Clint can’t help but be oddly comforted by that. Clint is a person of few words, preferring the quiet thrum of his thoughts, and sometimes it is comforting to have someone who effortlessly talks, words endlessly spewing from their mouth, demanding nothing of him in turn. While Thor tells them of the great Lady Sif, Clint watches his surroundings.

 

Steve is sitting on one of the barstool chairs reading a solid, paper and ink, newspaper as he eats his pancakes. Bruce and Tony sit on the other two barstools, intently leaning into each other, eating; Tony talking animatedly about subatomic particles and the certainty of the cell being the smallest unit of life, while Bruce intently listens, softly speaking up when there’s a lull in Tony’s chatter. Beside their plates are two steaming mugs of coffee.

 

The hollow weight in his bones doesn’t feel quite so heavy anymore, doesn’t feel quite as oppressive. Who knew the weight of nothingness would be such a burden, such an oppressive force, compressing his chest until the breath left his lungs in a sharp gasp. He takes a deep breath, and is amazed that he can without feeling the familiar pressure on his chest.

 

Apparently it’s Steve’s turn to do the dishes, so he gathers his, Natasha’s, and Thor’s plates, sets them on the counter beside Steve.

 

“Thanks, Clint,” Steve says, warm eyes meeting his for a second, demure shy smile on his lips.

 

Clint secretly worries about Steve; the man is a walking barely breathing anachronism. He’s not sure if anyone else has noticed how reserved the Captain is, how worryingly solitary. It can’t be easy to sleep for seventy years only to wake up and find the world you knew no longer exists, that it has been morphed into a thing whose bare bones you barely recognize. It can’t be easy to wake up to a world devoid of everyone you knew, everyone you loved, everyone who loved you in turn. And though Clint knows Steve can be unflinchingly polite, all soft all American smiles, he recognizes loneliness when he sees it, recognizes the dull barely there flicker in Steve’s eyes. Clint wonders if Steve is depressed, wouldn’t be surprised if he was; wonders if he is suicidal in any way, would be shocked if he weren’t.

 

Clint worries about them all, about their stability as a team, about their stability as individuals. Before he can lose himself in his thoughts, however, Tony comes over and begins talking. It takes him a second to tune in.

 

“—go to the workshop. These new arrows aren’t going to test themselves, plus there are still some things I’m unsure about and we never did finish discussing the design specs for those new acidic arrows of yours. Gotta talk about building you a new quiver and --”

 

“Shouldn’t you be analyzing that Chitauri molecular analysis Banner sent your way?” Clint interrupts Tony mid sentence, the words tumbling from his mouth before he can trap them.

 

Tony pauses for a moment and Clint thinks he sees a brief flash of hurt in his eyes, but he blinks and Tony is all smiles.

 

"Hey," Tony says, his eyes quickly darting over to Natasha and back to Clint, "it's cool if you’re busy or whatever. I mean, we can test them some other time and I can look into arrow making and figure some of this stuff out myself, no big deal, I’m a genius after all, if I can become an expert in chemical engineering in just a few months I can totally learn all there is to know about arrows in a few days—”

 

“I’m not busy,” Clint cuts in knowing Tony is prone to keep on babbling. “Just figured that analysis must have a higher priority than my arrows.”

 

“That analysis is boring, besides JARVIS will give me the run down of it later. I didn’t just make him so he could insert sarcastic and snarky commentary into my daily life, you know.”

 

No, Clint thinks, you didn’t; but you also wanted to hear a voice besides the one in your own head. Tony, he’s learned, does not do well in silence. It suffocates him, makes him tense, anxious, until he can’t help but fill in the void.

 

Clint merely shrugs after having met Natasha’s eyes past Tony, “Let me shower and change, I stink.”

 

Tony grins, a slight manic gleam in his eyes.

 

Natasha silently follows him onto his floor, into his bedroom, and it isn’t until the door closes behind them that she corners him.

 

“What changed?”

 

It’s a simple question with a complicated answer. For a brief moment he thinks about asking her what she means, but he knows her, knows it would be futile, a waste of time and breath; besides, part of him doesn’t want to circumvent the question.

 

He stands up from crouching down by his bag, a bundle of clean clothes in his hands, turns around from the closet to look at her, “He gave me something I needed, no questions asked. I…” He drops his eyes, unsure of how to get her to understand, before he brings them back up to hers again. “I can breathe around him, Tash. He’s just there, doesn’t demand anything from me, doesn’t treat me differently, is willing to turn his back on me without looking over his shoulder; was only surprised that I designed my own weapons, and that I hacked him.” He shrugs, a simple lift of the shoulders. “It’s almost normal.” After everything that has happened his mind screams for any semblance of normalcy.

 

She nods, and with that he turns to go into the bathroom leaving the door wide open in case she wants to continue their conversation. When he makes his way out to dress, his room is empty.

 

*

 

Five minutes later, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, Clint is standing in front of the adamantium glass door wondering how to get Tony’s attention over the pulsing music so he can get in. He watches Tony say something to thin air, and briefly Clint thinks the genius is talking to himself until the door opens; realizes Tony must have informed JARVIS to let him in.

 

Walking in, he can see Tony has already pulled up all the specs for their arrows. There’s an extra chair by the workbench. He takes up his perch, sitting crossed legged like the adult he is, and immediately starts looking over notes Tony has made on their designs. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses playing in the workshop.

 

“Okay, so, about these acidic arrows,” Tony says enlarging the specs in front of them, “how about we hollow out the shafts, line them with Alloy 20, store the acid there? It would allow you to carry more.”

 

“Won’t work,” Clint informs him, running a quick simulation for him. “Liquid inside would cause instability I couldn’t compensate for. I may be able to hit a big target, but the shot will be nowhere near accurate. Too much risk.”

 

“Just how deep into my systems did you manage to hack?” Tony asks, head cocked, speculating how much of his system Clint is familiar with to the point he can easily create a simulation.

 

“Deep enough.”

 

“Huh. Can I use you to find gaps in JARVIS’ security code? Not like we have anything big going on.”

 

Clint turns to look over at him, watches as he pulls up a log he recognizes from when he hacked him the first time. He sees Tony’s eyebrows steadily make their way to his hairline the more he scrolls down the log.

 

“You’re good,” he says nodding to himself. “JARVIS wasn’t even aware you were there until ten seconds in. Definitely gave my AI a run for his money there, ‘cOmrade.’ But seriously, you should don a white hat and help me plug any security holes. We can make a day out of it, last one to hack into JARVIS’ mainframe gets stuck with kitchen duty,” he finishes waggling his eyebrows over at him.**

 

“You’re crazy, Stark,” Clint says chuckling. “You’re on. Just give me a date and time and I’m there.”

 

Clint spent the rest of the day holed up in Tony’s workshop, designing new arrows while Tony began building prototypes of both the acidic and explosive ones they had designed during the night. He even took over music selection at one point telling Tony he obviously needed to familiarize himself with music from this century and decade; just because he wasn’t born in this century didn’t mean he could simply ignore the generation’s music. His response to that had been to grudgingly tell JARVIS to play whatever horrors Clint considers good music after five straight minutes of ranting about the cultural value of bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin. Clint started off with Nirvana (figured the 90’s were as good as any middle to start with), then moved on to Smashing Pumpkins, then to Alice in Chains. He threw in some Chevelle, tried his luck with Drake, and then played The Killers to which he was surprised to find the billionaire slightly humming to.

 

Around noon, Bruce tapping on the glass brings them out of the workshop, letting them know, via JARVIS, that lunch is ready. As soon as they finish with their lunch, and after a few looks from everyone else on the team—especially from Natasha—they make it back down to the workshop and keep working for a few more hours until Tony declares he has to get ready for his dinner with Pepper and the board of directors when his AI reminds him of it.

 

“Seriously, what is the point of having someone run my company for me when I still have to do things like this?” Tony grumbles as he makes final adjusts to their plans and begins shutting down programs.

 

“Company’s called Stark Industries. It’s still your company, no matter who runs it,” Clint says shrugging, getting up to inspect the prototypes Tony has built.

 

“Yeah,” Tony says with a deep weary sigh that causes Clint to look over at him. There are still dark circles under his eyes, his hair is disheveled, and there are new cuts on his hands from the arrow vanes.

 

“You used to have no problem skipping out on these things before,” he says as they head to the exit, because it’s the truth. Tony was notorious for missing board meetings, keeping his board members on constant edge about stock prices, doing whatever he wanted to do the way he wanted to do it. He was a whirlwind. But for all his faults as a businessman, he was ultimately successful; presenting new tech to his members that was more than enough to appease them in the form of millions of dollars in revenue.

 

“I know. But not even Obie— _Stane—_ was so adamant about me interacting with the board; then again he was trying to take the company away from me, so there’s that. Okay, shut it down JARV.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

They take a moment to watch the glass darken before the pair of them make their way over to the elevator. A moment passes before Clint, for once, breaks the silence.

 

“Besides the obvious, why do you hate it so much?” Clint doesn’t expect a full honest answer.

 

“Because they don’t care. All they see are the numbers on their progress folders and for most of them those numbers just mean their salaries. After Stane, I spent months trying to replace some board members, but they’re too legally protected. Some of them have been a part of the company since the beginning and have life long board contracts with few clauses. Frankly, I’m just waiting this out until some of them drop dead or get too sick to stay.”

 

Tony has a tablet in hand and is busy typing away, but his tone is tired, still weary, and now Clint can’t help but think about Tony’s own stability or lack thereof. No one leaves three months of torture in Afghanistan along with recent events without something more than scars on their skin. Clint wonders just how deep Tony’s go.

 

The Avengers were still too raw, he realizes, otherwise he and Tony wouldn’t have had this conversation. The genius would have gone on a tangent, an incessant bombastic stream of words, until Clint either forgot the question he had asked or simply gave up pursuing it. He marvels at Pepper’s patience.

 

He leaves Tony in the elevator while he gets off on the communal floor or rather the Avenger’s floor as he’s decided to call it. He heads towards the kitchen where he can see Bruce, Natasha (who has since changed into a tank top and yoga pants since their workout), Steve, and Thor. Bruce and Natasha are over by the stove while Steve and Thor bring out various plates and silverware.

 

“What’s for dinner?”

 

“Indian,” replies Bruce, turning from the steaming pot set before him on the stove, a gentle smile on his lips.

 

It takes him a while longer than he’d like to admit to remember India was the country the doctor had hid himself away in before SHIELD sent Natasha to retrieve him when shit hit the fan. Did the doctor miss India? Miss being anonymous, miss being as far away from the states and any American military organization as he could manage? Does he find their presence stifling, after so much time spent by himself? Can he breathe here? Since the accident, Clint knew the doctor did not stay in one spot for very long, a few months give or take, sometimes less. Clint thinks about whether or not Bruce will leave when he finishes analyzing the biological composition of the Chitauri.

 

He glances over at the pair by the stove and notices the distance between them, a distance most likely imposed by Natasha because he knows she still remembers the look in Bruce’s eyes as he shifted and changed in front of her, as he struggled and lost the fight, doubled over in size, the recognition leaving his eyes. He’s seen the security footage, can count the number of times in one hand he has seen the near petrified look in her eyes.

 

Dinner resembles breakfast in how Clint is Natasha’s satellite, orbiting around her without trying to be too obvious about it. Tony’s right, they aren’t a team, the proof lies in the fact they aren’t wholly at ease around each other. For as well as they fought together in the battle of New York, they don’t trust each other, not where it counts.

 

Somehow, dinner is a quieter affair than breakfast. Natasha seems to be lost in her thoughts, and Bruce—without Tony around—is more withdrawn than usual. Steve and Thor are silently eating.

 

They all collectively turn their heads when they hear the ding of the elevator and out steps Tony in a well-pressed grey suit with a light yellow diagonally blue striped tie, hair artfully styled, actual black dress shoes on his feet instead of his usual high-end sneakers. The billionaire looks handsome in a way that makes Clint realize why he was named one of the top ten hottest celebrities by People’s magazine. On his wrists, he sports his Iron Man bracelets.

 

“Ok, kiddies, I’m off to my meeting. If anything comes up, JARVIS can contact me and send one of the suits. I should be back in a few hours, sooner if I manage to piss off the board enough,” he cheerfully declares.

 

They wave him off with mutterings of “Good luck,” “Be back soon,” and “Have fun, Stark.”

 

Minutes later, Clint absconds out of the Avengers’ floor, goes into the elevator, and—without pressing a button or speaking a word—is brought to his own floor. JARVIS seems to be picking up on whatever pattern of behavior he has established since living at the Tower. Has he always been this predictable? He tries to think back to his younger days, before SHIELD, before becoming a freelance assassin. He isn’t sure. His life has never been what he would call predictable; growing up in a circus with an abusive father did not provide him with any sort of predictable schedule. It would have been far easier to avoid his father’s rages, he reflects, had he known to not be inside their trailer at three o’clock in the afternoon because his father had gotten drunk, indignant due to some thing or other. Freelance jobs and SHIELD work resulted in a lot of moving around, from town to town, state to state, country to country. And while SHIELD provided far more stability than being a freelance assassin had, he was only in the country a few weeks out of the year. His surroundings are not breeding grounds for predictability, or stability; rather the opposite really.

 

He rummages around the pocket of the pants he wore last night for the pills Tony handed him, quickly uncaps the bottle, and pops two. He begins to change into his sleepwear (a t-shirt and boxers) when he pauses, staring at the black bag at the foot of his empty closet. This time, instead of tossing the clothes back into the bag, he sets them off to the side; the foundation of a dirty pile of laundry he is sure to amass over the next few weeks.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** "cOmrade" is the alias of a famous hacker named Jonathan James, who at the age of sixteen hacked NASA and the Department of Defense. His hacks, while harmless, cost the government thousands of dollars in repairing the security of the systems. Unfortunately, he committed suicide in 2008, two weeks after his home was raided in what was thought to be a connection to a sizable identity theft case. His suicide was tragically due to his fear of being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. 
> 
> Tony tells Clint to put on a white hat in reference to "white hat hackers." The term refers to those who break into computer systems in order to expose their vulnerabilities and then "patch" them up. 
> 
> If you want to know more:  
> http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/10-famous-hackers-hacks.htm  
> Jonathan's page is #10
> 
> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are fiercely loved! I love knowing what my readers think and constructive criticism is highly appreciated! Also, if any of you feel any important warnings were left out of the tags, please let me know and I will fix it immediately!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet." -Nikos Kazantzakis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the wonderful Cheerfuldisposition. We will have our muffin dates, my dear, even if we have to do them through video chat! As always, thank you for putting up with my crazy rants and reading all I write <3

 

It turns out sleeping pills aren’t enough to keep the nightmares under lock and key; they wait to assault his brain until the dead of night. Once again, Clint finds himself gasping, gripping his gun as if it were a lifeline. He supposes that, in a way, it was. His finger is on the trigger, the safety off, and after a few harsh breaths he clicks the safety back on.

 

His finger remains on the trigger.

 

He used to keep a blade under his pillow until one night, after a particularly rough mission, Natasha burst into his room as he screamed his throat raw, his hand dripping blood onto the white hotel sheets from clutching the wrong side of the blade. For a moment, he recalls the burn of cold vodka, the sting and tug of ten stitches. He couldn’t shoot his bow for a week and a half.

 

Sitting up, he tries to get his body’s trembling to subside. At least this time he isn’t drenched in sweat.

 

His internal clock tells him it’s only a few hours until sunrise; the clock on his bedside table tells him it’s four thirty in the morning, the numbers a red bold glow, hazy at the edges of his blurring vision.

 

He prefers the red to the blue, even if they both remind him of blood.

 

He considers slipping off onto Natasha’s floor, burrowing himself in the warmth of her safe bed, the feel of her body beside his a comfort, but decides he’s invaded her space enough since the invasion. Besides, he can do better, he can _be_ better; or at least construct the illusion that he is.

 

He rises from his bed, leaves the confines of his floor, soundlessly saunters to the elevator, and onto the Avengers’ floor only to be met with a familiar scene. Tony is, once again, sitting on a barstool chair with a drink in hand, this time intently staring at the brightly lit screen of his tablet instead of staring off into the dark with a glazed look in his eyes.

 

“You look like shit, Katniss,” Tony says, briefly looking up, a mirror of their conversation the previous night.

 

“Har har, Stark.”

 

Clint can only imagine the sight he must present. He tries to forget the view he caught of himself in the bathroom mirror, dark deep-set circles underneath hollow eyes, his hair standing on end.

 

The floor is so dark this night that it takes Clint a moment for him to notice Tony is still dressed in the suit he wore for his business meeting/dinner, his tie hanging loosely around his neck.

 

Rounding the counter he ambles over to the pantry, pulling out a bag of chamomile tea from a small yellow box and the bear shaped container of honey, softly murmuring, “You should buy local honey instead.” Setting the honey and teabag upon the counter he begins opening a few cabinets in search of a mug.

 

“Third one to the left of the stove,” Tony helpfully supplies.

 

Opening the correct cabinet, Clint finds himself holding a purple mug with the words “Archers do it with a straight hard shaft” written around it in white cursive below the image of a black arrow. Clint turns towards Tony, arching an eyebrow, smirking.

 

“Really, Stark?” He manages to ask while biting the inside of his cheek to suppress the laugh caught in his throat.

 

Tony looks up at him, his face alight with the glow of his tablet, a smile on his lips, his eyes warm. “I knew you would at least appreciate my mugs, Barton.”

 

Clint can’t help chuckling as he sets about making his tea.

 

“Bruce appreciates your mug, saw him using it this morning, didn’t protest when you handed it to him,” he points out, placing his mug inside the microwave.

 

Tony snorts, “Please, I could hand Bruce an unpinned grenade when he’s like that and he’d still take it and only frown when he realizes it can’t hold his precious caffeinated fuel.”

 

“And you wouldn’t?”

 

“I made weapons for decades, Barton, I know when I’m being handed a grenade; whether drunk, sober, or in an un-caffeinated-zombie-like state, trust me I know,” he retorts in a self-deprecating tone.

 

They both look down for a moment, Tony’s words having cracked the joking atmosphere. Everyone knew Tony’s past with weapons production was a sore subject. Clint doesn’t think telling Tony that he used to use his weapons back when he was doing freelance would help raise the billionaire’s spirits, even if he mentioned they were among the finest weapons he’d ever used. The reason the man had been dubbed the Merchant of Death by the media.

 

“How was dinner?” he asks, leaning his elbows against the counter opposite of Tony, warm mug in hand, feeling the warmth seep into his skin as the steam rises up. Regret surges through him as soon as he asks the question; Tony’s smile has turned hard at the edges, his eyes shuttered.

 

“My board doesn’t think I’m focusing on the company enough, is concerned about our stock prices, and want me to put this ‘Avengers nonsense’ behind me. Want me to let the rest of you handle things, while I lock myself in my lab and think of the next updates for our StarkPhones and StarPads that will surpass anything Apple could manage to produce by years,” he runs a hand through his gelled hair, disheveling it in the process. “Pepper agrees with most of it, except for the bit about locking myself down in my lab. Says I do that now enough as it is.”

 

“What are you gonna do?”

 

At this Tony’s eyes light up with the mischief of a fifteen-year-old prankster. “Why, I’m going to give them the phenomenal software updates I did a month ago and then, maybe, depending on how much they kiss up to me, I may slip in the new hardware I designed two weeks ago. I’m gonna hold off telling them about the new energy stabilizer I’m designing until I can get a working prototype, though.”

 

“Why don’t you just release these things for the board as you create them? Or at least let them know you’re planning them? Wouldn’t it get them off your back about the stock prices and the bullshit about not being dedicated to your company?”

 

Tony shrugs, swiping at his tablet screen and typing. “It’s a type of business strategy. First, giving them a good amount of new, awesome tech that you’ve seemingly pulled out of your ass, keeps everyone around you guessing as to what you’re gonna pull out next. While it doesn’t generally keep stock prices stable across the board, it does provide us with a good range. Second, if I did that then they would expect more from me because it would give the impression that I was always designing something for the company and then they would never cease asking me about the ‘next big thing,’ and I would have no choice but to blow my brains out. Third—and most important reason—it’s one of the few ways I can get away with fucking with my board members without potential fallout, like a lawsuit. Really helps that there’s only one of me; they wouldn't put up with this much shit otherwise, certainly not from anyone else.”

 

“Sound business strategy,” he says. “You planning on sleeping any time soon? You’ve been awake, for what, two days now?” Clint suddenly asks, making note of the shadows underneath the billionaire's eyes; they look darker, deeper set.

 

Clint’s aware Stark is a notorious insomniac. He’s not by far the worse case he’s seen, but most insomniacs don’t have destructive weaponry available to them with just the simple press of a button or a mass intellect along with a lab imposed with the most horrific safety laws in place. He knows that when engulfed in a project, the man will forego sleep for days. Knows that when there is no project to work on, the man will still not sleep, but rather tinker in his workshop until coming up with a new technological advancement. The genius will do anything to keep his sleep deprived addled mind occupied. He wants to ask more, but doesn’t; he understands what it’s like to fight off sleep for the sake of your sanity.

 

“Uh huh, something like that. JARVIS?” Tony asks raising his head from his tablet.

 

“Sir hasn’t slept for more than thirty minutes in the last fifty-four hours.”

 

Clint shakes his head and sips his tea.

 

“As long we’re on the subject of sleep, I take it the pills didn’t help. I can get you a stronger dose if you want,” Tony says, his tone hesitant and soft, as if Clint were a cornered wounded animal who will lash out at him if Tony doesn’t tread carefully.

 

His throat closes up as a wave of terror rises up and he almost chokes on his tea. His neutral expression must be slipping, allowing the swarm of emotion he is feeling to seep through, because Tony quickly backtracks and changes the subject.

 

“You ever see Game of Thrones?” The genius asks, as if he hadn’t just been prodding at Clint’s mental state a minute ago, gaging his stability.

 

“Uh, no,” Clint replies as he turns away to wash out the now empty mug and place it in the dishwasher all the while struggling to rein in his emotions and keep a straight face. He clenches his hands into fists in an effort to control their trembling.

 

“What!” The billionaire shrieks as if personally affronted, it’s not like anyone else is there to hear them. “And here I thought you were _cultured.”_

 

Tony proceeds to hop off the barstool he was occupying, heads directly to the pantry, all but throws the door open, grabs a couple of bags of what Clint can see is popcorn, and dutifully throws them into the spacious microwave.

 

“Barton,” he says pointing a finger at Clint, “sit your ass on that couch or so help me god I will restrict your range access.”

 

More amused than anything, Clint does as he’s told, stretching himself across the long expanse of the couch, grabbing the shabby red quilt someone (probably Tony) left behind, and all but cocooning himself with it. He’s fiddling with a hole in one of the patches of the quilt when Tony comes back, plops a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of the couch, and returns with two mugs of coffee. Tony must have fished his out of the dishwasher and washed it in order to reuse it. Taking a small sip, Clint can taste the subtle burn of whiskey going down his throat. He knew there was a reason he approved of Tony. He may have told the man he didn't drink, but this night he could use a drink, and if Tony is anything, it's perceptive of others' drinking needs. Minutely, he begins to relax.

 

Tony sits himself, cross-legged, at the end of the couch, tablet set astride on his lap. The tip of Clint’s toes just brush the pant clad thighs of the other man, a few points of warmth; Tony doesn’t seem to mind the small physical contact.

 

“Cue it up JARVIS, Ygritte here needs to catch up on great television. Please tell me you’ve at least _heard_ of it.”

 

At Clint’s blank expression he runs a hand through his hair, a pained look on his face.

 

“Seriously, has SHIELD been keeping you under a rock?”

 

“I’m usually not in the states long; few weeks out of the year at most. This is the longest I’ve been continuously stateside; besides the time I spent in New Mexico when the shit with Thor went down and I wound up babysitting Dr. Selvig and the tesseract,” Clint says with a small shrug, thinking of all the time spent up on his perch silently observing the eccentric scientist as he examined the blue glowing cube and studied the monitors before him, jotting down notes every once in a while; the way he would sarcastically ask if he was staying in his nest for the night and then offer him coffee once midnight struck.

 

Clint doesn’t miss it.

 

"Jesus Christ, did you not have access to a TV, Barton? Seriously? Or how about a bookstore delivery? You should sue SHIELD on grounds of negligence, my god, how have you survived this long?”

 

“With a lot of arrows and a lot of bullets and a lot of blood on my hands. Now, are we watching this or not?”

 

He feels defensive. SHIELD may be a shady intelligence organization and Fury may be a hard man with secrets as vast and complex as the universe, spinning a web of lies more elaborate than any spider’s, but well, it was better than what he had before.

 

Heeding his tone, Tony puts both hands up in apparent defeat. “Play it, Jay.”

 

The first ten minutes are filled with an eerie sense of dread and absolute confusion. When the group on screen returns to the site of the dead ritualistically placed bodies and they are gone, Clint glances over at Tony only to find a mischievous expression on his face.

 

“What the hell are you having me watch?” he alarmingly asks once the opening credits begin.

 

Tony doesn’t reply, merely smirks at him and continues to work on his tablet, occasionally sipping his alcohol saturated coffee and grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl on Clint’s lap.

 

When the elevator opens an hour later, both men turn to look over the couch to find Steve stepping out dressed in running shorts and a black tank top; considering his clean state the captain has yet to go out for his morning run.

 

“Morning, Cap,” Tony calls out to Steve as the man heads towards the fridge only to slightly falter, turn his head, and stare at the archer and engineer on the couch.

 

“Uh, could you be a dear, grow some antlers, and pass us the bottle of whiskey on the counter?” Tony asks, breaking the nearing awkward silence.

 

For a moment, Steve just stands fixed to the spot, seemingly confused by Tony’s words, and then, with a slight nod of comprehension, he is heading over to the kitchen, and grabbing the whiskey bottle Tony left on the steel countertop.

 

As Steve approaches, Tony quickly glances over at Clint, only for his eyes to land on the bottle warily, before Clint makes the connection and everything clicks. He snatches the bottle Steve means to hand to Tony and before he even thinks to utter any sort of apology, Tony speaks up.

 

“You should really read my file, Cap. I don’t like being handed things.” Clint uncaps the bottle, reaches over, and pours more whiskey into Tony’s mug; he catches the grateful look Tony inconspicuously sends his way. “You should forgo your morning workout and join us instead, this can be step one into getting you familiarized with the twenty-first century. I take it Fury didn’t do much on that front.”

 

“Didn’t get the chance to,” Steve calmly replies, opening the fridge and taking out ingredients to make a sandwich. “Invasion happened a couple of months after I woke up.”

 

“Well, take a seat Cap, we’ll catch you up,” Tony says gesturing towards the unoccupied armchair to his right.

 

Clint keeps his expression neutral, gaze on the paused face of Eddard Stark, suppressing his surprise. He’d heard, via Natasha, about the words exchanged on the Helicarrier mere moments before he had launched his attack and the residual tension that seems to permeate any type of interaction between them since. He’s unsure what he finds more startling, the fact Tony extended the invitation or the fact Rogers sits, a smile tugging at his lips, his eyes alight, his sandwich on a plate on his lap, as Tony speedily gives him the run down of the first episode.

 

The archer notices Tony zoning out around six am, watches as the soft glow of his tablet dims until the screen darkens, the only light that of the TV and the arc reactor.

 

“Have you read any of our files? Besides the standard SHIELD ones? I mean, have you read our character files?” Clint silently asks Steve, glancing over at Tony to make sure his sleep remained undisturbed. It’s early enough in the morning where he doesn’t feel like he should be sleeping, where he can focus more on the day and less on the night. It’s a small comfort.

 

“No,” Steve hesitantly replies, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand, “it, uh, seemed like an invasion of privacy.”

 

“First chance you get, read our files. There are things none of us are comfortable discussing, Steve, but these are things you should know if you hope to have a chance in hell of leading this ragtag team Fury scrounged up together,” he replies, giving Steve a meaningful look, wordlessly imploring him to understand the fact he can’t treat them like that, expecting them all to have a group heart-to-heart post battle. He needs Steve to understand how fucked up they all are and how to make it all work.

 

Steve nods curtly. Assuring himself the genius remained asleep, Clint continues.

 

“I was under the impression you two didn’t get along, that you hated each other actually.”

 

At this Steve looks over at him, his eyes searching, seemingly assessing him for a moment before he speaks.

 

“Hard to hate a man that houses you without asking for anything in return. Besides, I was wrong.”

 

There is a hollow look in Steve’s eyes Clint has grown to intimately know. Unfortunately, before Clint can ask the soldier what he was wrong about, an alarm blares throughout the tower.

 

“JARVIS?” Tony croaks, having awoken to the strident sound.

 

“Director Fury is on the line with an urgent message, sir.”

 

“Ugh, tell him consultation hours are from nine to five,” the genius replies, rubbing his stiff neck, gingerly moving it from side to side.

 

“Tony,” chides Steve, his tone authoritative, his Captain America mask having fallen into place.

 

"Don't get your panties in a wad, Rogers."

 

Tony waves a hand dismissively, a signal JARVIS interprets as allowance to push the call through.

 

Clint sits up straighter when a holographic screen appears suspended in the middle of the living room showing Fury sitting at his desk, back at SHIELD HQ in New York. They’d relocated to a building in the city in order to deal with the Chitauri cleanup and containment. The man bears his usual hard expression, but Clint has known him long enough to identify the tired lines of his face, the tense set of his shoulders.

 

“This better be important Fury, the sun isn’t even out yet and –”

 

“There is already a car en route to pick up your team, Captain,” Fury reports, cutting Tony off mid tirade, addressing Steve instead, who simply nods and rises from his seat, the good soldier he is.

 

“Hang on, if you think—” Tony fiercely begins, indignation coloring his tone, only to be cut off by Fury once more.

 

“We’ve been hacked, Stark. I need you all to report in to discuss the inevitable clusterfuck that’ll result from this.”

 

Tony looks like he wants to say more, but instead he merely nods, the call promptly cutting off.

 

“JARVIS alert the rest of the team, tell them we’re meeting in the lobby in twenty.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Scale of one to ten, how fucked do you think we’ll be because of this?” Tony asks Clint, twisting in his seat to face him.

 

“Budapest,” Clint promptly replies, disentangling himself from the quilt, smoothly rising from the couch.

 

He misses the questioning look Tony sends his way.

 

*

 

The amount of information SHIELD holds is vast; its importance beyond measure. Tony may be able to bypass it’s firewalls every other day with apparent ease, but Clint designed those firewalls, knows the great skill needed to bypass them, knows the inevitable clusterfuck will come from a major player. As he showers and dresses, he ponders what the target of this cyber attack was. Was it mission related? Were ops compromised, agents in danger? Or worse, were they after information regarding the Chitauri, the lethal weapons he was aware Fury held in his possession?

 

He meets the rest of the team at the tower lobby five minutes later, joins them in waiting for the transport Fury sent. Tony looks more awake than he has all night or rather morning, considering the time. He’s pacing a few steps from the rest of the group, his ever-present tablet in hand. Bruce stands by Tony, looking haggard, quietly murmuring when the other scientist gets close, tipping the tablet screen for Bruce to see. Both Steve and Thor are quietly waiting by the door.

 

Deciding to let the genius and the others be, he heads over to stand by Natasha, who is casually leaning against a wall, covertly watching the others, the most alert of them all. She rakes her eyes over his body as he approaches, her expression minutely softening.

 

“You still aren’t sleeping,” she quietly notes, green eyes meeting his own.

 

“No,” he admits. If she were anyone else, he would have scoffed; either ignored the observation or bitingly informed them to mind their own business. The nature of their partnership is such that they don’t lie to each other. The trust linking them too hard won. That doesn’t stop him from changing the subject of their conversation.

 

“What do you think?” he asks. There’s no need for him to elaborate. They know each other intimately; he could have just as easily asked the question with a simple look.

 

“Budapest,” is her laconic reply.

 

He chuckles at that and at the arched eyebrow he receives in lieu of a response, he explains, “That’s what I told Tony.”

 

“You know now he’s going to hack SHIELD and read that mission report, right?” She asks, amusement swimming in her eyes.

 

He grins, leans his back against the wall, beside her, and says, “Good. All the better to prepare himself with.”

 

*

 

An hour later the Avengers find themselves inside an incredibly spacious warehouse on the fringes of the city; a clear remnant of the Industrial Age that had swept the country up all those years ago, ushering in a wave of smog, laying the foundation for a sleepless generation.

 

“God, this is prodigiously banal. Seriously, did Fury just bring us to a warehouse in the outskirts of the city? I feel like I’m in a sleazy crime novel,” Tony pontificates as they make their way inside, led by a nondescript SHIELD agent dressed in standard agency black.

 

Miraculously, the car trip to their new location had been relatively quiet, with Tony spending the entirety of it working on his tablet, the rest simply silent as they stared out tinted car windows to watch the sun slowly rise over the broken city, illuminating the remaining piles of rubble yet to be cleared away. New York eerily resembled a post-war zone; the effect was surreal.  

 

All throughout the hour-long ride, Clint saw the destruction, saw the leveled streets, the ruined buildings, and could not help taking responsibility for it all. Sure, he may not have been the direct cause of it, may not have been the one who actually caused the destruction, may not have been the one to hand over the keys to the gates, but he had inevitably provided the foundation for it, had set up the necessary stepping stones for the devastation to take place, had smashed the gate open.

 

Halfway through the ride he felt something hit him in the chest and land on his lap. Looking down, he realized it was a StarkPhone, a message on the brightly lit screen that read: “ _This is the first prototype of the new model. I figure if it passes whatever test of approval you have then it’s good enough to go into production. FYI JARVIS has direct access. Go crazy. -TS.”_ He dutifully spent the rest of the trip doing just that, figuring out every feature of the new device, making note of the changes in code he’d make, grateful for the distraction.

 

Snapping himself away from the memory, he focuses on the direction they are going, casting covert glances here and there, checking his surroundings; it’s a habit he can’t seem to shake no matter where he goes, but has decidedly saved his life numerous times.

 

He’s only been inside SHIELD facilities a handful of times since the invasion occurred. He still doesn’t meet the eyes of the other agents, doesn’t know what he’d do if someone approached him and accused him of killing his lover/friend/brother/sister/colleague, except lay there and take it. An action he’s sure would earn him nothing but anger and exasperation from his partner; Natasha doesn’t understand she can’t defend him from this.

 

Still, he doesn’t meet their eyes and they don’t meet his. He likes to think it’s a silent understanding.

 

They are led to a room at the top floor of the warehouse, what must once have been the manager’s office. Now, it is all but gutted, containing a round glass conference table with surrounding chairs, a single flat screen against the east wall. Fury is already there, standing at the head of the table, slightly off to the side of the screen, Deputy Director Maria Hill on his left.

 

The Avengers file in, take their respective seats, and turn their eyes towards Fury – all but Tony, who is already rifling through the matching file that has been left in each of their respective seats. Clint sits left of Natasha, burrowing himself in his hoodie; struggles not to focus on Coulson’s conspicuous absence.

 

Fury looks each and every one of them over, before proceeding to brief them on the situation.

 

“Okay people, at 0300 hours we had a cyber security breach. Our guys managed to contain the attack, limiting the intruder’s file access, but we don’t know what good that did because we are sadly and completely unawares as to what they were after to begin with, though we can hazard to make a few educated guesses,” Fury declares, glaring at each one of them in turn with his one good eye, hands dutifully clasped behind his back. His stance is tense in a way that causes both Clint and Natasha to sit up straighter.  

 

“How?” Tony asks, his eyes fixing Fury to the spot. “You’re SHIELD, and someone just went in and _hacked_ you? Tell me, how does that happen, Nick?”

 

Clint is aware of the mirth Tony is trying to hide, he can see it, clear as day, in the slight twitch of the billionaire's grim set mouth; he’s sure Fury can see it too. The glare Fury sends his way is enough to make a lesser individual cower, certainly most—if not all—of the agents under his command, but Tony’s glare never wavers.

 

“After we assessed the damage done to our systems after the attack on the Helicarrier,” Fury sternly continues, decidedly choosing to overlook Tony’s outburst, “we realized our firewalls weren’t as secure as before. We’ve had the guys over in our security department patching up the holes in our system, holes that apparently _keep_ fucking popping up in different lines of code as a result of the virus delivered to the system.”

 

At the mention of this, Clint bends his head down, blankly staring at the tabletop. He was already responsible for the Helicarrier attack; his ledger already steadily dripped red. What was a little more?

 

“And you want me to take care of it,” Tony sighs; the truth of the statement irrelevant, as he pulls out his StarkPad and begins working.

 

“Exactly what information has been compromised, sir?” Steve calmly asks, from the end of the table, directly facing Fury.

 

“The file in front of each of you is the report compiled by our techs,” Fury answers, motioning to the aforementioned folders, which Steve hastily pulls open and begins to read.

 

The archer’s attention is brought back to the matter at hand when he feels a kick that leaves the shin of his right leg throbbing. Glaring from underneath lowered lashes at Natasha he straightens up, pulls the file to him, and begins skimming. At first glance, the information in the report seems inconsequential: numerous passwords and passcodes listed to various entrances relating to scattered SHIELD facilities, superficial data on the Avengers one could acquire from watching national news, and schematics Clint knew to be a decoy by the apparent lack of a significant portion of air ducts and misplaced corridors. He’s about to comment on this when Fury once more speaks up.

 

“The information they were able to obtain appears to be inconsequential at best, all passcodes and passwords were effectively changed as soon as we noticed the attack taking place. There are, however, a few ops that have been blown and while they were of importance, they also seem to be random targets. Still, we aren’t taking chances and have extraction teams already on the way for the agents’ whose cover have been blown.”

 

Clint sees Steve giving the Director an expectant look, urging him to continue and deliver the bad news. Steve, Clint notes, is adept at reading between the lines, of hearing what remains unsaid.

 

Fury takes a breath, and rubs a hand over his weary face. It’s in this moment that Clint takes note of the newly added age lines that mar the Director’s face, the bag that hangs from his tired bleary eye. Fury, more than any of them, had to deal with the technical aftermath of the invasion, had to reestablish parts of his agency, had agents and friends to bury, had to assuage political figures. Clint can’t imagine that last one had gone remotely well, considering all the reports of politicians worldwide growing increasingly worried about the possibility of another alien invasion. This is the most human he has ever seen the other man appear. Fury was a pillar of steady strength and clear headedness within SHIELD and to see him tired, haggard, and honest to god weary was enough to make Clint and the rest of them fill with unease. Beside the man Hill appears much the same. For a moment, the ground beneath his feet feels unsteady.

 

“Whoever it was found one of the holes and took advantage of it. What we know about the Chitauri, they know. The only thing stopping them from breaking down our doors and stealing our weapons is the fortunate fact they have no clue where they’re currently being stored. Let’s keep it that way.”

 

While Fury may have been looking exhausted and weary mere minutes ago, the edge of defiance was back now. Clint could see it in the tense set of his jaw, the way it jutted out in clear opposition, the hard set to his mouth, the gleam in his eye.

 

“’ _Our’_ weapons?” Tony asks, a white-knuckle grip on his tablet. “You mean the Chitauri weapons, the ones you’ve been hoarding all along after Bruce and I fucking told you to destroy them? The ones you’re apparently trying to somehow replicate? You mean those weapons, Nick?”

 

At Tony’s short, yet ardent speech, Bruce sits up in his chair, pulls off his glasses and begins the process of cleaning them against his cotton t-shirt. For all the act appears to be calming and soothing, Clint saw the shine of green in the scientist’s eyes before he closed them to take a breath.

 

“Those weapons constitute weapons of mass destruction,” he states, perching his glasses once more atop his nose. Steve grows increasingly tense at this. “You can’t recreate them, it’s not feasible. First off, those weapons are biologically attached to the Chitauri and recreating them means either recreating their specific biology or modifying the biological aspects of those weapons to fit our own biology. Neither option is simple; attempting either one would take years, decades, it would involve learning the genome of an entire species of which we only have dead specimens of and then manipulating it. Secondly, Tony and I thought you might resort to this and we’ve actually discussed it.” His eyes never waver from Fury’s own as he continues, “We won’t let you.”

 

“The hell you won’t, Banner! Have you looked around? The world is in desperate need of these weapons!” Fury bellows.

 

“You mean like they were in desperate need of the HYDRA weapons?” Steve asks hotly, all but thrumming with anger.

 

“The world has changed, Captain. Our enemies have grown in number since your time. When it comes down to it, we are highly outnumbered and hilariously outgunned,” the Director replies, pointedly looking at Steve. “We just got _invaded_ people! An _alien species_ descended upon the earth with the sole purpose of _destroying_ it!”

 

“We know, we got the memo, we were fucking there! And we took care of it!” Tony yells.

 

“If you all think this won’t happen again you’re more ignorant than I took you for. And if you think we actually fucking _won_ , well then, I pity you. All this,” he makes a hand gesture seemingly encompassing everything around them, “is just the beginning. You’re a smart man Stark; you know this. What did you do when you were still making weapons and the terrorists managed to come up with something bigger and better, huh? You scurried down to your workshop and invented a more destructive weapon and handed it to the military gift-wrapped with a bow.”

 

“Yeah, and there’s a reason I stopped making weapons,” Tony states in an eerily calm, steady voice.

 

“Because it was the fault of your own land mine that resulted in that embedded in your chest?” Fury rhetorically asks, pointing at the arc reactor hidden beneath Tony’s jacket and shirt.

 

Clint stills, eyes quickly scanning Tony who has been momentarily stunned into silence. He hadn’t been aware it had been one of Tony’s own weapons that had aided in his kidnapping. Steve, Bruce, and Thor are staring at Tony with various expressions on their faces, ranging from pity, to horror, to an unexpected quiet understanding from Thor. Natasha is the only one not looking at the genius and Clint took that to mean she had somehow known, of course, she knew Tony better than they did as a result of her undercover position at SI last year. All the same, Clint could see the anger in her eyes at the Director’s words.

 

“You want to know what I learned in my three month stay in Afghanistan? I learned that weapons only serve to exacerbate the problem, Nick. All holding a big stick does is get you a harsher beating,” he says, shaking his head, all the while grabbing both the file and his tablet as he rises from his seat and walks out the door.

 

The rest of them take a moment to glance at each other before they promptly rise and follow Tony out of the makeshift conference room. Clint supposes it’s their first true act as a team, since having been thrown together during the Chitauri Battle.

 

“Your Man of Iron is correct, Director,” Thor solemnly says, pausing on the threshold in front of Clint, his gazed firmly fixed on Fury. “I suggest you heed his counsel,” he continues leaving an incensed Fury behind.

 

“Sir, perhaps we should—”

Clint hears Hill begin to speak as he swiftly walks out the door, her voice becoming a distant whisper the further he gets from the gradually closing door.

 

*

 

Charles Bernard “Barney” Barton, aka “Trickshot,” pauses the image on the tape, sits up on the rickety motel bed to polish off the rest of his beer, and lets a widespread grin split his face. He takes a moment, presses rewind, watches the trajectory of the shot in slow motion, tracks its origin, and _there._ High on a rooftop, a familiar blurred figure stands with a bow and arrow, shooting, watching the chaos below. It isn’t the fact every arrow perfectly hits its intended mark that causes the flash of recognition to burn in his eyes. No, it’s the form. In that moment, watching the way the figure angles his arm, the way he extends the other to pull the shoot, the way he holds his feet slightly apart, the way he seemingly shoots without looking, he knows.

 

That’s Clint, all sleek moves and shit form. After years of searching he finally has a location: New York City. Who would have thought his younger country boy, circus-performing brother, would move into the big city?

 

Pausing to wipe the blood that has slowly streamed down his chin due to reopening his split lip, Trickshot grabs the phone off the bedside table and hits redial, his veins thrumming with electricity.

 

“I told you I could help you regain what you have lost,” answers a steady, male voice with a thick Middle Eastern accent.

 

“I’ll go, I’ll take the job, but I'm not returning until I take care of a few things. Understood?” Trickshot says, getting up to grab his black duffel off the floor, heading to the small motel closet, and grabbing his sparse clothing.

 

“Of course, we have already planned for your side venture,” the disembodied voice says, his rough words carrying through the static creeping up between the tenuous connection.

 

“How much?” he asks, because he is a steadfast believer in never doing anything for free; a lesson ingrained in him by his father.  

 

“Three million. Five if it’s done quickly, with minimal collateral damage and no trace that leads back to us. Those weapons are your number one priority.”

 

He nods before he can catch himself, yanking off a shirt from its hanger, and stuffing it in his duffle, creased and unfolded. “This is going to take time, months, maybe half a year, maybe more. I can’t say for sure; they may be disorganized in the wake of that invasion, but their type sleep with one eye open. Slipping in won’t be simple, or smooth. I’ll send you a list of what I’ll need. You sticking with this number?”

 

“Yes. I will require monthly reports, of course. I have sent you an address; there you will find cash, a card for expenses, a fake passport and accompanying identification papers should you need them. There are also instructions on how to leave the country you are currently in.”

 

Trickshot doesn’t ask how he knows so much about him. There are times he still finds it odd, how these people contact him with a job, via phone or through one of the many emails he regularly checks. How they know more about him than he does about them. “Trickshot” is a name that is exchanged via a soft whisper and only among a specific crowd. He stopped questioning all these things years ago; the answers are irrelevant.

 

“Sounds like we have a deal. I’ll make contact to confirm recovery.”

 

He hangs up the phone and turns back towards the TV, facing the paused figure standing at the edge of a New York City rooftop. Reaching for the remote, he un-pauses the image, and sits on the edge of the bed, watching as the figure plunges from the rooftop edge, shoots an arrow, and swings through a thick glass window. Without giving it thought, Charles’ hand rises to rub at the puckered circular scar on his chest, only several inches above his heart.

 

He can’t wait to reunite with his little brother, and return the favor.

 

*

 

“I swear Fury has a god complex that rivals Christof’s,” Tony says irritatingly as they make their way outside the SHIELD warehouse, leaving their SHIELD escort behind with a hard glare that discourages the poor agent from following them.

 

Seeing Steve scrunch up his face in confusion, Clint helpfully supplies, “Controlling asshole from _The Truman Show;_ it’s a movie,” to which Steve just nods. Tony just grins over his shoulder at him as they near the warehouse doors.

 

The sun is bright in the clear, cloudless sky as they emerge and Clint mentally bemoans the fact he hadn’t thought to bring sunglasses, until Natasha walks up next to him and silently slips him his favorite pair. In return, he slips her the keys he stole from their SHIELD escort. These two gestures completely sum up the relationship between them, he thinks.

 

With Nat behind the wheel of the car, Clint sits in the passenger seat beside her, while Tony, Steve, Bruce, and Thor are in the back seats of the SUV. Clint will forever remember the image of Thor inside a car; even inside a SHIELD issued SUV, the Asgardian had to occupy the last row of seats by himself, while Bruce sat in between Tony and Steve.

 

“You forgot about the virus, didn’t you?” Natasha asks, glancing over at him before turning her eyes back onto the road. Like him, she is wearing dark sunglasses, but while he may not be able to see her eyes, he can see her thoughts through the set of her mouth. Her lips are thinned together; the barely perceptible lines around her mouth are set and hard. He can feel the stillness that settles over the others as she voices her question. In the rearview mirror, he can see Tony has stopped fiddling with his tablet and is staring directly at him. For a second, their gazes meet in the mirror. Clint doesn’t know what to think when Tony drops his first.

 

Letting his head fall back on his seat, he allows the fatigue he is feeling to seep into his tone when he says, “I don’t even remember making that virus, Tasha; not its specific code anyway. And Fury never asked me to handle it after everything settled down. Figured it must not have been that serious.”

 

Natasha looks over at him once more, the lines around her mouth creased in concern.

 

“You know,” Tony chimes in, his voice carrying over the soft music playing from the radio, “it’ll be easier to get SHIELD’s security back up and running if you help me out. I get you don’t remember the specific code, but you made it and only you know how you think, so uh yeah, there’s that. Plus, you designed most of SHIELD’s firewalls and this is really a two person job, because I am _swamped_ with SI work and I need to tell Fury that I can’t—won’t—keep coming to his rescue, to fix whatever mess his IT agents have done. Not for free, anyway.”

 

“Good, Clint will help you,” replies Natasha, her eyes never wavering from the road and the accompanying morning New York traffic as she makes a sharp shift into another lane. “After we all have breakfast; it’s Clint’s day to cook.”

 

Clint silently bemoans ever having left his bed.

 

*

 

“Wow.”

 

“What?” Clint asks leaning over to look at the screen Tony is working on beside him.

 

“Your code is sophisticated,” Tony says, and there’s a note of respect in his tone. “Shit, Legolas, you should quit this spy gig you got going on and come work for me. Pretty sure SI has far better benefit packages than SHIELD, plus you get paid vacations and I’ve read part of your file, I know you haven’t gone on a vacation in god knows how long.”

 

They’ve been down at the workshop for hours, pouring through data logs, mapping out the holes in the security system the hackers must have undoubtedly used to bypass the SHIELD firewalls. They were also struggling to figure out the coding of Clint’s virus and how to break its perpetually repeating cycle of renewal. Clint had to admit, the virus looked like his best work yet.

 

Fingers rapidly flowing over the keyboard in front of him, eyes sorting through lines and lines of code, Clint snorts, “Unfortunately for you, my contract with SHIELD is non-renewable and non-negotioable.” Not that Clint has thought about leaving, because in all reality his job was essentially a set part of his identity; he couldn’t imagine doing anything else, he’d probably find it too banal or plebeian.

 

“Wait, what? What the hell does that even mean?”

 

Clint merely shrugs, a move meant to relieve the tension in his muscles. “Can’t leave SHIELD. Or well, technically I can, but then…You know what? Maybe you should widen your search parameters.”

 

At this, Tony stops working and swivels his chair, facing Clint. He has an eyebrow raised in question that only serves to exacerbate Clint when he turns to look at him; it almost mirrors Natasha’s own. “You sure about that, Barton? Because I’m getting some major ‘back off’ vibes from you, if you don’t want to tell me something, then fine. You don’t have to tell me a damn thing about yourself. I may hack SHIELD every other day and treat firewalls like gateways whose flimsy locks are just calling out to be picked, but I do have some concept of privacy, even if I do sometimes think it doesn’t apply to others.”

 

“Tony, you have an AI wired throughout this entire tower who records everything that happens,” Clint calmly responds. He’s intentionally messing with Tony; he honestly hadn’t expected Tony to back off so quickly, or to even stop to consider what Clint really wants. He’s gotten too used to SHIELD invading his privacy lately, especially since Loki. He honestly believed Tony had already hacked into SHIELD, looked up what happened in Budapest, and gave in to the urge to read the rest of his personal file.

 

“What! Okay, now I am offended! Do you honestly think I sit around in my workshop _spying_ on you all? Oh, god, no, don’t answer that. Honestly, if anyone should be worried about getting spied on it’s me and everyone else, considering you and Natasha are the resident spies,” Tony babbles, but by the mischievous glint in his eyes Clint knows the engineer knows he wasn’t being serious. The archer is silently grateful Tony has gone and rolled with the obvious change of subject.

 

Smirking, Clint says, “Don’t forget assassins, too.”

 

“Oh god, I made a terrible mistake, didn’t I? Letting you all live here, under one roof,” Tony replies with a groan, letting his head tip back against his headrest, eyes looking at the ceiling.

 

Clint can’t help but laugh a little, causing Tony to smirk amicably in return.

 

“I did look up what happened in Budapest,” Tony says after a few minutes of them working in silence.

 

“Figured you would, wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise,” Clint replies, eyes never drifting from his screen.

 

Tony merely nods, “So you and Natasha…”

 

“She’s my partner,” Clint laconically replies, intentionally avoiding Tony’s searching eyes.

 

“You almost died trying to get her. Your mission was to kill her, but instead you brought her in and you became partners. SHIELD’s most successful partnership at that; your mission record is practically spotless. Why?” Tony asks quietly, yet firmly.

 

“It was the right call,” and now Clint stops working, he knows where this conversation is going. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned Budapest. It was a mission turned FUBAR at best.

 

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. For all that she’s scary as hell, she’s valuable, I get that. What I don’t get is why you went through all the trouble of hiding what you were trying to do from SHIELD. They could have done something. Instead, you and Natasha got pretty banged up. Some broken bones, week in med bay, suspended training and missions for you for a month. You had to be evac’d out of there. You left behind a war zone. All for someone you just met, not to mention all you knew about her was that she was an assassin, a damn good one.”

 

“What happened to you understanding the concept of privacy?” Clint curiously asks. He knows he’s going to end up answering Tony’s questions, someday. But he also wants to know if Tony will back down, wants to know where the lines are in this, what, friendship?

 

“Hey, you mentioned Budapest. You knew I’d look it up and I bet you also knew I would have asked about it whenever I got the chance. So, that leads me to two conclusions, either you seriously need to read up on the Tony Stark Operating Manual—a copy I'm pretty sure you can get from Pepper—or some subconscious, psychological part of you wanted me to ask about it. Who the fuck knows. The point is you mentioned it, now you have to spill.”

 

Clint steadily huffs out a breath. Tony has a point. He can see himself subconsciously reaching out to someone who is, in a sense, outside of his problem, someone with an unbiased view of who he is. Tony doesn’t _know_ him, for all that he has read about him. He’s made damn sure that all of who he is isn’t contained in some cybernetic file someone could just hack into. Unfortunately, Clint doesn’t know what to make of the fact his subconscious seems to have picked Tony of all people to open up to.

 

“Not many people know this, but I’ve known Natasha a long time, Tony; longer than I’ve known any one at SHIELD,” he settles for saying; he’s not going to give away more than he has to. Tony is getting to close, asking about a part of his life only Natasha truly knows.

 

“So you and Romanov have a history? That goes beyond your partnership at SHIELD?”

 

Clint nods. “Yeah, and I…well, I owed her. And that’s all you’re getting from me, Tony.”

 

“Why is your file so empty?” Tony suddenly asks, genuine curiosity lighting his eyes.

 

“My file isn’t empty,” Clint says, shaking his head.

 

“Yeah, in a sense it is,” Tony says, eyes looking the archer over. “Everyone else’s, well except Natasha’s, but I can understand Natasha’s. Anyways, everyone else’s file is an open book. Practically everything about them is in there: Cap, the serum, the speculations around his relationship with Barnes; Bruce and his accident, his relationship with Betty; hell, even Thor has a file that has more personal information about him than yours does on you and he’s from another fucking planet!”

 

“And what about your file, huh?” Clint shoots back, annoyed.

 

“What about my file?” Tony asks, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. Trying to convey casualness, all the while being defensive. “Natasha wrote my file, didn’t she?” he says, smirking.

 

“Yeah, she did, but the file in the SHIELD servers is redacted to hell and back; don’t think SHIELD doesn’t know you go in there and alter it every now and then. Fuck, even what Natasha got on you wasn’t all that accurate, considering the fact that, not only were you dying of palladium poisoning and acting erratic as hell, but you’re you! You’re practically a professional bullshitter, Stark! You want to know so much about everyone else, but you don’t want anyone to really know anything about you!” Clint screams, enraged. He isn’t entirely certain where all the anger is coming from, except that it’s there, that it’s been there; wrapped up with all the hurt, all the guilt, and all the _fear._ Someone took him, stole him from himself; used his body and his mind for their own personal gain and the thought of locking himself away as tightly and securely as he possibly can is the only thing keeping him sane.

 

Clint doesn’t remember rising from his seat, but all of a sudden he is looking down at Tony who’s still sitting, arms crossed in front of him defensively; Tony opens his mouth only to close it, eyes wide. For a brief moment, Clint sees a flicker of what he thinks is a mixture of hurt and guilt in the engineer’s eyes. And for that brief moment, he feels a wave of guilt that threatens to consume him. Gripping the back of his own chair until his knuckles ache, Clint takes a deep breath, strives to regain his composure.

 

“Clint—” Tony says, his tone pacifying.

 

“Don’t, Tony,” Clint says, eyes closed; suddenly feeling tired and weighed down, he sinks back into his chair. “Just don’t.”

 

“No, I think you need to hear this, because I understand, okay? Trust me, I get it,” he says, brown eyes brimming with a fragile open honesty. It’s a look he doubts many have seen on the man. “Why do you think I hack into SHIELD and delete part of my file, or add misinformation to it every once in a while? But this is clearly eating at you, Legolas. You haven’t had a good night’s rest in weeks. You should talk to someone; doesn’t SHIELD have a nice department of shrinks trained to deal with all the bizarre crap that’s part of your line of work? I mean, I'm sure a shit ton of people needed a shrink when Thor unceremoniously dropped down from the universe and I bet a few more had a fucking religious crisis, too.”

 

Clint doesn’t tell Tony he hasn’t sleep well in years, or that he refuses to go to a SHIELD psychiatrist for fear he killed someone he or she knew. He just says, “It’s not that simple, Tony,” abruptly turns around and strides out of the workshop, his steps heavy.

 

*

 

Clint finds Natasha laying on the bed of her apartment, in silk black sheets, propped up against several pillows, a book in her lap, a few strands of hair hanging about her face that have escaped the thin elastic band enclosing her small red fiery bun.

 

“I’m taking off,” he states, leaning against the wall. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t hesitate. For a moment, he feels like his old self again, assured in a way he hasn’t felt since the Battle of New York, since Natasha told him about Coulson after forcefully “recalibrating” him, her tone hushed and soft in a way that had instantly caused a cacophony of alarm bells to go off in his mind.  

 

Natasha frowns, a slight downturn of her lips, and sets her book aside atop the bedside table. He watches as she straightens against the soft pillows, as her eyes narrow, and he steels himself for the questions he will have to answer; after all this is Natasha, they’ve decided long ago to answer to each other.

 

“What happened?” she asks, steel in eyes.

 

Clint pushes forward, takes a few steps toward her bed, and sits at the edge meeting her hard eyes. “I need some time away, Nat.”

 

“Clint—” she says leaning towards him, the steel in her eyes easing until they become soft.

 

“I feel like I’m drowning here,” he responds, deflating, the assurance he felt minutes ago seeping away through his pores. He feels riddled with holes.

 

“You know what would happen if you keep running now,” her hand reaches out to hold his own, their pale hands a stark contrast to the black sheets; he’s thankful she didn’t choose red, doesn’t think he could’ve handled the image of their hands immersed in red.

 

Refocusing on the words she’s just uttered, he knows she’s right, he does know. He would keep running; keep moving from suffocating place to suffocating place in a desperate attempt to outrun SHIELD and leave his memories of blue behind, drowning all the while.

 

“Fuck…yeah, I do,” he murmurs as he runs a hand over his haggard face. “You sound like him,” he can’t help muttering, can’t help comparing.

 

“Someone has to,” she proclaims, a smirk lining her lips. “Now get in.”

 

She throws the sheets back.

 

Laying next to her, listening to the sound of her breathing while she continues to read, he pulls the slim StarkPhone from his pocket, scrolls through the contacts already programmed in and sends one text: _I don’t want a SHIELD shrink._

 

The reply chimes in an hour later, pulling him back from the haze of semi consciousness: _Okay._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Finally some plot, right? Btw, how do we feel about all that happened? Yay, nay? Also, if you guys want little things to happen here and there, please leave a comment and I'll see about incorporating it into the story; if I think it fits it'll get added somewhere. Im open to suggestions :)
> 
> I have some news regarding updates: they will come, they will just come very slowly. I am super busy this semester with classes, lab, my senior thesis, and trying to keep myself from having a nervous freakout (its my last yr of college, think I'm entitled one). Good news is that I'm aiming for every chapter to be ~ 10k or more words and I already have about 1.5k on the next and I'm hoping to introduce a new character in the mix for ch. 3 :) So the plot should move along some more next chapter. Also, I may be posting side stories (not related to this? i don't know yet), but just know I am working on this. This is not being abandoned, even if I have other works in the works lol Thank you for reading :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten Rings, Russian winters, and a breakup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay new chapter!!!! Let's call this my Halloween gift to you all. I've had this written for a while now, but I went on a crazy edit spree. I didn't mean to be this late in posting, but working on my research manuscript took up more time than I thought and along with everything else for school just left me exhausted. I'm not even done *sigh* Anyways, enjoy! As always, beta'd by the beautiful, lovely, and spectacular cheerful dispositions!
> 
> *Trigger warnings for a panic attack and flashbacks.

_“The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What’s left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.” -Bertolt Brecht_

 

Three am finds Tony down in his workshop flicking away yet another holographic screen in sheer frustration.

 

There is too much data and at the same time, not enough. The molecular analysis Bruce did of the Chitauri, while thorough, leaves too much room for speculation—more than either he and Bruce is comfortable with. They have been studying these samples for weeks now, but there’s only so much they can glean from a dead sample, an alien one at that. All they have are untested hypotheses and educated guesses. He and Bruce speculate Chitauri cells must have a mode of communicating between cells that are outside of the organism, specifically with other Chitauri cells. What else could explain the way the Chitauri dropped dead once the nuke Tony flew into space detonated, destroying what Tony refers to as the “mothership”? And while Bruce seems to have alienated a few unknown cell structures he hypothesizes must be involved in such a process, he has been having trouble testing his theory considering all their Chitauri samples are, well, dead. Their daily reports to each other are filled with more unknowns every passing day and Tony’s frustration has increased with every new question. But he can’t remember the last time he encountered this  significant a challenge and he would be lying if he said part of him didn’t relish it.

 

For a moment, Tony halts he constant holographic flicking and zooms in on a scan of the Chitauri gun laying atop his workbench, only to flick it away a minute later as well. He has a working theory that the guns must somehow activate via electrochemical impulses—much like the human brain sends messages throughout the body. According to Bruce’s report, all the necessary chemicals are present: sodium and potassium, among a few others. But, again, Tony can’t test his theory due to their dead sample. Although, now that he thinks about it, he could create a program to run the proper simulations. Unfortunately, given the fact the Chitauri are made up of several chemical compositions they have never previously encountered nor heard of, any simulation would be incomplete and still in the realm of uncertainty. Fucking aliens, he thinks.

 

Still, the biological and mechanical processes are so thoroughly fused together, that Tony won’t have a chance to study the mechanical parts until Bruce finishes his initial report on the biological nature the weapons seem to have as a whole. Sure, Tony could do his own biological analyses, but Tony is, first and foremost, a mechanical engineer. Tony also knows that Bruce needs to do those analyses, knows they make him feel useful and good. They give him a chance to feel as if he is giving back to the city, making up for all the collateral damage done by the Hulk during the battle. Tony knows they assuage his guilt—though he himself doesn't believe Bruce has anything to feel bad about to begin with—so Tony asked that he do them, claiming the biological aspects of the Chitauri were more Bruce’s area than his own.

 

Tony stops flicking through screens when one in particular catches his eye. It’s the backtrace he asked JARVIS to do on the SHIELD hack. The signal keeps bouncing from server to server, but… there’s almost a pattern. And Tony can’t believe this because whoever hacked SHIELD was _good_ and good hackers just don't commit these types of solecisms, they don’t. It’s obvious someone failed their Hacker 101 course, Tony thinks, either that or it was purposeful.

 

“JARVIS?” Tony calls, already settling in his chair and pulling up the tracker screen on the monitor. “Identify the servers that have bounced the signal the most and pull them up on this monitor.”

 

“Yes, Sir.”

 

When a map of the Middle East comes up on the monitor with several red dots spaced throughout, JARVIS continues,

 

“There appear to be six servers that are the primary bouncers of the signal, Sir. All of them scattered throughout the Middle Eastern area, however there are two in Afghanistan that appear to have the highest rate of cyber traffic.”

 

Tony stares at the map, at the blinking red dots, and tries not to think of a confining hot cave and a car battery in his chest. For a second, with frightening vividness, he can  feel the graininess of sand on his skin, hair, and clothes; feel the way his clothes stuck to his sweat damped skin. He feels his breath quickening as JARVIS zooms in on the general area and all Tony can see is an expanse of desert that goes on for miles and miles, endless in its reach, and he can just feel the heat on his dry cracking skin only to suddenly feel himself submerged under cold water once more, his lungs longing for air to the extent of burning.

 

“Sir?” JARVIS says and Tony isn't quite sure how, but there’s concern there, has always been concern there. There are parts of JARVIS he coded while drunk, lost in an engineering binge, and he has no memory of these occasions, but somehow he managed to wire concern into JARVIS’ code, and it’s amazing, always amazing, he thinks, that he managed to create JARVIS, the one thing in all the world who knows him best, who has been with him almost longer than anyone else, and Tony’s breathing keeps quickening, his gasps becoming shallower, but he focuses on JARVIS, on the concern there, and he tries to stop breathing for a bit to see if that would make it better, but he just ends up shaking and taking big gulping breaths when he can't hold his breath anymore and that just reminds him of drowning, so he grips the edge of his workbench until his knuckles turn white and his hands ache, as he fights to forget.

 

“Sir, it is three-thirty am and you are in New York, in the tower’s workshop. You have been here for approximately thirteen hours and forty-seven minutes,” JARVIS begins, his tone calm and precise.

 

Tony shuts his eyes and fights to control his heaving breaths, focuses on the information JARVIS is providing: the date, time, location, the current temperature in the room, and what he had been doing for the past hour before his attack hit. It isn't until his breathing slows down that he releases the death grip he has on the bench and manages to uncoil his tense muscles. Opening his eyes, he sees that JARVIS switched the screen. Instead of the endless expanse of desert sand, he sees floating pictures of what must be the most adorable puppies in all of existence in various stages of play. He can’t help but huff a rough laugh at their short little legs and floppy ears.

 

“Thanks, Jay,” he says, his quiet voice loud in the silent space.

 

“You are welcome, Sir,” comes the soft reply.

 

When he feels a tap on his shoulder he turns to the side and notices Dum-E is there, his claw outstretched as he holds what looks to be a chocolate shake towards him. He can see You and Butterfingers in the background, both apprehensive to come closer. His bots are quiet, none of them chirping with their usual merriment, and he can't help but feel a little guilty over the fact.

 

With trembling fingers, he takes the shake from Dum-E and pets his mechanical claw in wordless thanks; when Dum-E chirps in response, Tony smiles. The gesture reminds him of the many times Dum-E had brought him a similar shake after one of his numerous nightmares and/or panic attacks after returning from Afghanistan. Once he had left the conference and returned to the familiar comfort of his home, he had shut himself up in the workshop for weeks, sleeping on the couch, fighting off nightmares. It had been the one place he had felt safe, secure, and like he were finally home. For three weeks his routine had been composed of panic attacks, horrific nightmares, coffee, and a plethora of shakes, along with whatever food JARVIS ordered for him. On the morning of the fourth week, he began building Iron Man.

 

After finishing his shake (he swears he tasted a hint of motor oil in it), he decides to go up to the communal kitchen in search of coffee. He can't go to sleep now, not after having a panic attack like that. If he somehow did, nightmares would only plague his mind and startle him awake.

 

“Okay, JARVIS,” he says, rising from his seat, “scan the region and compile a report of any active groups currently operating within a fifty mile radius of those servers that pose a threat. Send it to my tablet when you finish.”

 

“Yes, Sir.”

 

When he gets to the communal floor he notices the kitchen's lights are off, but there is a faint blue glow along the walls that lets Tony know someone is watching tv. He pauses at the threshold, his mind going over everyone’s sleeping habits, only to realize there is only one person who could be awake at this time of the night.

 

With light quiet footsteps, he ambles towards the couch, seeing a familiar head of blonde hair peeking over the top. He comes around the side and casually plops himself down, taking a seat beside Clint, who turns towards him to mutter a short greeting, turning back to the tv screen once more.

 

Tony can't help but feel a bit uneasy when he takes his seat beside Clint—the last time he saw the archer was when they argued down at the workshop and Tony uttered words that caused Clint to walk away from him. That was two days ago. Two days they spent avoiding each other; Tony locked up in his workshop, fixing SHIELD’s systems, welding away his frustrations, and Clint down at the range, shooting arrow after arrow. Tony may or may not have asked JARVIS about Clint’s whereabouts throughout those two days. He feels the urge to say something, possibly apologize, but before he can come up with the words to say, Clint speaks.

 

“You know, I blame you for this,” he says, gesturing towards what’s showing on the television.

 

When Tony notices what Clint is watching, he cannot for the life of him contain his laughter. He laughs until the tension leaves his body and his unease seeps out from his pores leaving him light with relief. Glancing over at Clint, he can tell the agent has relaxed—his spine no longer as straight, his shoulders less taut.

 

“It’s only because I’m all caught up on the show that I’m not only going to accept the blame, but apologize as well. You don't know what you’re in for, Barton.”

 

“Stark, they killed Stark!” Tony can’t help it, he chokes on his breath as he guffaws once more. “What kind of show kills off their own fucking main character!” Clint glares at Tony as if he were responsible for this.

 

“My dear Ygritte, soon enough you’ll learn no one is safe in this game,” Tony tells Clint once his lungs contain enough air.

 

“Fuck, something told me I shouldn't have kept watching it after that first night,” Clint shakes his head, but Tony can see the warm amusement in his eyes.

 

“You know, I came up here for some coffee, but now that I think about it, waffles and ice cream sound good—alongside the coffee, of course. You in, Robin Hood?” Tony asks, his tone colored in mirth.

 

“Sure, I’m down. But, you know, you do need to sleep, right Tony?”

 

“Yeah, no, not tonight.” Tony's limbs feel heavy as he rises from the couch, and he thinks Clint must have noticed something because he doesn't ask Tony about it. He’s grateful; Afghanistan is a topic he doesn't wish to revisit, even though he recognizes the signs that he’ll have to face everything he tried so hard to bury in the near future.

 

Tony sits with Clint for hours, watching episodes of Game of Thrones he’s already seen, laughing at Clint’s reactions, all the while bantering back and forth as they eat the waffles Tony put in the toaster and covered in strawberry ice cream. A part of his mind reflects on the fact that this night appears to be an echo of their previous ones: they always seem to find each other in the middle of the night at the communal floor, both running from the terrors sleep brings them, somehow managing to gravitate towards each other. He wonders if their friendship will only consist of these echoes, always confined to the still, dark hours of the nighttime. He wonders when he began considering Clint an actual friend, not just a coworker, not just a teammate, but an honest to god friend. Tony can tell Clint doesn't want anything from him; he doesn't want his money, doesn't want to latch onto his inevitable limelight like many others have previously done—hell, Clint doesn't even want him for his weapons, he could invent his own.

 

There’s something freeing in this knowledge, Tony realizes. He can breathe around Clint, can settle next to him without the usual tension that seems to coat most of his conversations with other people.

 

With a pang, the thought that he hasn’t been able to do so with Pepper these past few weeks resonates within his mind. He’s noticed she’s been distant, focusing more on the company than their relationship, but that could be due to the widespread panic the invasion caused. Truth is Tony isn’t sure what any of it means and it worries him, her apparent distance and withdrawal. Looking over at Clint, he shoves the thoughts aside with an ease born of years of practiced repression.

 

*

 

Tony wakes to the blinding morning light of the rising sun. Groaning, he turns away as if on instinct, pulling the blanket over his head in a feeble attempt to block out the sun. His mind drifts in the groggy space between conscious and unconsciousness and it takes him a full couple of minutes to realize he is not laying on his bed, that he’s still on the couch, wrapped in a warm quilt someone must have draped over him. It takes him another minute to become aware the rest of the Avengers are shuffling about in the nearby kitchen; it’s only the fresh smell of coffee and the delicious smell of breakfast that beckons him to rise, quilt still draped over his shoulders.

 

Upon seeing him, the rest of the Avengers shoot him amused glances; particularly Clint, who hides a snicker behind a cough, though his glance is more fond than not. Tony glares at him, knowing full well who’s responsible for his current state.

 

“You’re an ass,” he mumbles, perching himself atop a barstool at the kitchen bar beside the archer.

 

“I’m sorry,” Clint chuckles, “I didn't realize I was supposed to put you to bed.”

 

Tony decides to ignore the double entendre in favor of the plate of toast, bacon, eggs, and pancakes Steve places in front of him, alongside a steaming cup of coffee.

 

“Thanks, Cap.”

 

Steve gives him a small smile which Tony acknowledges with one his rare genuine smirks. Ever since Steve moved into the tower, he and Tony have been working on their relationship, trying to get past the explosive fight they had on the Helicarrier. Tony knows that Steve is a good man. He’s aware of the ghosts that haunt Steve’s footsteps every waking moment. He knows that Steve is still adjusting so he’s made it his personal mission to help the man acclimate. He’s given Steve a StarkPhone and commanded JARVIS to assist the Captain with whatever he may need; he even programmed lessons on the basic workings of the internet, Google, satellites, and commonly used social media sites. When it comes to technology, Steve is adapting faster than Tony anticipated.

 

Tony’s finishing off his toast when he hears a shrill beep come from off to the side. As soon as it sounds though, the others groan in utter exasperation.

 

“Ah, the foul noise returns once more,” Thor proclaims.

 

“I thought someone turned that off?” Bruce wonders aloud from his seat at the kitchen table, his green Hulk coffee mug in hand.

 

“I did,” Natasha answers, a scowl on her features that causes worry to churn in Tony’s stomach—he’s seen what Natasha is capable of.

 

“I told you we should’ve just thrown it out the window or something,” Clint mutters beside Tony.

 

“Okay, what the hell are you guys talking about?” Tony wonders, when another shrill beep sounds and the others all groan in annoyance once more.

 

“It’s your tablet,” Steve says, turning off the stove and making a plate for himself, “it hasn't stopped beeping since we came in this morning. We looked at it, but we couldn't unlock it to see whatever notification it had. Natasha just turned it off, or I think she did.” He looks over at Natasha with a questioning glance, she just glares back.

 

“I did," she says, rising from her seat at the kitchen table to stalk to the fridge, extending her arm to retrieve something from the top.

 

“Uh, why is my tablet on top of the fridge?” Tony has to ask because, while he knows he has the irksome habit of leaving his tech everywhere, he’s certain he hadn't left his tablet on top of the fridge last night. Or maybe he had? “You know what, don't answer that. I know what the alert is. JARVIS, why didn’t you wake me when the geographical scans came in?”

 

“Sir, you have slept a total of four hours in the past two days, I thought it prudent to not immediately alert you.”

 

Beside him, Clint huffs a laugh. “Your AI takes better care of you than you do, Tony.”

 

“Barton, if Steve hadn't cooked this morning you would be scouring the pantry in search of stale cereal,” Tony retorts taking the tablet Natasha laid in front of him and unlocking it with a biometric scan. 

 

“And you would have only had coffee for breakfast.”

 

“I don't know where you're getting your information from Legolas, but coffee constitutes a meal,” the genius claims.

 

“No it doesn’t, just because your IQ is higher than anyone else’s here, besides Bruce’s maybe, does not mean you can just—”

 

“Boys,” Natasha says, ending what Tony knows would have been a harebrained argument. “Stark, did the scan JARVIS conduct have anything to do with SHIELD’s hack?”

 

“Yes,” he says, his mind spinning through all the possible scenarios that would allow her to know this.

 

Even before revealing her identity as a SHIELD agent, Natasha had unsettled Tony. At first, this caused him to hire her, to try and figure her out; not to mention she had the air of someone strong and competent enough to be his PA, to manage his life while dealing with his numerous “eccentricities.” Natasha gives the impression that not much gets by her. He’s read her mission reports and knows she has the uncanny ability to focus on minute details no one else seem to notice. It’s not Natasha’s ability of being able to take him down outside of the suit in one fell swoop, without breaking a sweat, that uneases Tony. No, it’s her mind. It’s her ability to comprehend the hidden meanings in her surroundings that unsettle him, her ability to read the silences, that cause the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. Natasha knows and Tony wonders just how much.

 

“I backtraced the hack, narrowed it down to a few possible locations, and had JARVIS scan the region for any active terrorist groups,” he states, recovering from the slight fluster he felt at being reminded of how much Natasha knows, of how much she notices while the rest of them live unawares.

 

Once he starts to read the report, Tony feels his muscles tense as a slight spike of fear shivers up his spine, he supposes he should have known though. Organizations like the Ten Rings don't just go away, don't just disperse in defeat after taking a hit. For a moment, Tony is reminded of Hydra, of how its members used to proclaim that if one head is cut off, two more will take its place. Gathering his resolve, Tony rises and motions for everyone to follow him into the living room where he displays the results on the wall hanging monitor with only a second’s hesitancy that appears to go unnoticed by all except Clint, who is looking at him with veiled concern.

 

The rest of the Avengers crowd around him in order to get a clearer view of the screen. Tony can tell Steve and Thor are at a loss, having no idea what the results mean, but by everyone else’s reactions they can see they mean nothing good. Clint, Natasha, and Bruce, on the other hand, are tense beside him. It is Natasha who breaks the silence.

 

“I thought you took care of this problem, Stark, when you got out of that cave.”

 

While her words aren’t cruel, Tony still has to fight off the urge to close his eyes, to ascertain the status of his arc reactor, to shake his shirt so as to get rid of the uncomfortable grainy feeling of sand on dry, chapped skin. For all his control, he can’t help but shift his stance.

 

“Tony, are you okay?” Bruce’s eyes roam over Tony’s form, his tone concerned. But Tony can’t answer, not yet.

 

“Can someone please explain what the Ten Rings is?” Steve questions, looking from Tony to Natasha to Bruce, a note of frustration in his voice. It’s clear he isn't used to being in the dark, isn't used to having to have so many things explained to him, not when he’s supposed to be their leader, not when he’s supposed to be the one  guiding them.

 

“You have got to read our files, Cap,” Clint says causing Steve to duck his head. Sometimes Tony forgets just how young Steve is; for all that he’s lived through—the Great Depression, World War II, an alien invasion—the man is not even thirty.

 

Tony collects himself, berating himself for allowing the weakness to show. It has been well over a year and a half. It was high time he got over it, put his less than stellar experience in Afghanistan behind him. He beat the odds, he survived. That’s what matters. Everyone had thought him dead and he had escaped, had built what had then been his most advanced piece of tech, and risen up like a metal encased phoenix metaphor personified.

 

“About a year and a half ago, these guys kidnapped me while I was doing a weapons presentation in Afghanistan. That’s how I got this,” he says, tapping the arc reactor casing. “Long story short, they asked me to build them weapons, I said no, they got pissed, and three months later I built the first Iron Man suit and got out.” He leaves out the part of him torching the compound to the ground, of how shrill screams filled the air as the flames devoured everything in their path. He refuses to mention Yinsen, because despite how long it has been, that particular memory is still too raw. Yinsen gave him more than he would ever know and the fact that Tony's here, that he got out alive, but that Yinsen didn’t unsettles him to no end, a painful unease that sits heavy on his chest.

 

“The Ten Rings is a terrorist organization, primarily based in Afghanistan. They’re highly secretive. Based on SHIELD intel, their mission is to cause instability whenever and wherever possible. Whoever their leader is gets off on destabilizing regimes, causing civil unrest to the point it escalates to civil war. They’re suspected of being responsible for a significant part of the unrest going on in the Middle East right now. No one can prove anything, though. A few years ago, SHIELD had an agent infiltrate one of its cells. According to the agent’s reports, each cell has a leader and no cell actively communicates with each other or with the top boss—or bosses, again, we don’t know. Each cell just gets a shipment of supplies, mostly weapons. That’s all we know; the agent was killed a few months into the mission and SHIELD hasn’t tried infiltrating the Ten Rings since.” Clint’s tone is hard, yet matter of fact and while his low voice doesn’t resonate his tone leaves an impression.

 

Tony stares at the picture of Raza, at the cold black pools of his eyes, and thinks about the first time his head emerged above water, coughing and spluttering, his lungs screaming for oxygen, only to go back under again. For a moment, his breath catches in his throat and his lungs burn.

 

“Who are the rest of these guys affiliated with?” asks Natasha, breaking Tony out of his reverie. All the photographs of Raza JARVIS has accumulated are those involving meetings, some sort of exchanges. Each photograph shows Raza shaking hands with different men, in different locales. It’s then that Tony focuses on the burns that smear the right side of Raza’s face; he can’t help but feel a perverse sense of pride over them.

 

“Affiliation unknown, Agent Romanoff,” JARVIS declares.

 

Beside Tony, both Natasha and Clint stiffen. It’s almost imperceptible with the way they were trained to move, but Tony can see how Clint’s shirt tightens around his muscles and how Natasha’s whole body stills to the point Tony wonders if she’s still breathing.

 

“We need to work on identifying these men. You should send this to Fury, he’ll want to know if he doesn’t already,” Natasha says, her voice as calm, cool, and collected as if she were discussing breakfast options with the rest of them.

 

Tony nods, part of him feels numb. He wonders whether it would have helped if he had reviewed this information down in the workshop by himself before showing the rest of them.

 

“Tony, who exactly is this guy?” Bruce asks, patting and rubbing his hands.

 

“His name’s Raza, he was the leader of the compound that took me,” he answers, eyes never leaving those endless pools of black. “I burned half his face getting out.”

 

*

 

Trickshot thinks that if anyone were to look close enough they would be able to see the slow and steady—almost subtle—descent Russia is heading towards. It’s been more than twenty years since the Berlin Wall fell, since Nikolai Gorbachev gave in to his people, and yet it’s clear the country is reverting back to its old Soviet ways.

 

And it starts the way it always does: with fear.

 

Trickshot has spent a month or so in Moscow and during that time has learned to read the ever present fear that permeates the city's streets. But where there is fear, there is often anger. The tide of civil unrest is rising and Trickshot can’t think of a better time to leave the country. Change, after all, can be a bloody process. And while there is fear, anger tips the scales. Russians have never been a trusting people. They don't put much trust on the governments of other countries and they sure as hell don't trust their own. History, he thinks, has taught them well.

 

The address his new employer sent him turns out to be a PO box in one of the city's main postal offices. Inside he finds cash, a credit card, a fake passport that sports a picture unknowingly taken of him sometime in the last year, a fake birth certificate (he sure as hell isn't in his twenties), a fake driver’s license, and a sealed envelope he guesses contains his escape route. When he opens it though, he finds another slip of paper containing a different address. Plugging it into his phone's map app reveals the location is in Afghanistan, somewhere on the outskirts of Kandahar. Trickshot stuffs everything into his duffle bag and gets going, never one to remain in one place for long.

 

His way out of the country turns out to be a black, battered early 2000s Toyota Camry he finds in an almost empty parking garage in the middle of the rundown Kapotnya district. The instructions sent state the birth certificate, license, and passport should hold up to inspection by the border patrol. When he looks in the glove compartment of the car, he finds registration papers with the fake name that match the rest of his papers: Viktor Dragunov. He doesn't mind the Russian name, knows that it would be less suspicious for a Russian to leave the country than an American—they were too noticeable, too conspicuous in this part of the world. An American’s presence was always noticed in these parts, for the worse.

 

He gets in the car and makes his way to Uzbekistan, only stopping to stay at a motel once, when his eyes can no longer withstand the long, endless expanse of road without dropping shut every half hour or so. Crossing the border into Kazakhstan proves to be simpler than he thought, even with the armed guards patrolling. His Russian is rusty at best, but over the years he has managed to perfect the common phrases—enough to not arise suspicion to the fact he’s an American.

 

Kazakhstan proves to be an endless expanse of road as well and Trickshoot stops in seedy gas stations to refuel the car and grab snack foods along the way. He spends one night in Kazakhstan, in a small town near the Uzbekistan border, before once again getting in the car and moving on.

 

*

 

Clint watches the slight tremors that run through Tony’s hands as the genius grips his tablet with worry. They’re all sitting in the conference room Tony had installed within the Avengers’ common room.

 

“You’re sure?” Fury asks, his voice projecting through the conference room’s speakers.

 

“We have visual confirmation, sir. Raza’s been spotted making deals with an unknown,” Natasha reports.

 

“Send me the files.”

 

“We need to figure out what exactly they want, sir. Tony’s history with them is concerning. They should know that if they come after one of us, they come after all of us,” Steve says, meeting everyone’s gaze when they all turn towards him.

 

It’s a silent agreement, their second act as a team. It seems that nothing rallies them faster than imminent threat.

 

Coulson would have been proud, though he wouldn’t have mentioned it. But Clint would have known, after years spent in the field he had translated Coulson’s minute expressions. They became Clint’s favorite language.

 

“Is it not clear?” Thor asks, his deep voice snapping Clint back to the here and now.

 

“Thor?” Steve prompts.

 

“They seek the Chitauri weapons, Director. I informed you, Director, that the tesseract was a signal to all the realms your world was prepared for a higher form of war.”

 

“The Ten Rings isn’t some damned alien race, they’re human terrorists!”

 

“Hell bent on causing chaos for the hell of it. Thor’s right, the tesseract, the invasion, the fact that we won, it all signals to us owning some advanced weaponry. People are going to think we—that SHIELD—has it and they’re gonna come for it. The Ten Rings kidnapped me so that I could build them advanced weaponry and now they’re simply aiming to steal it. See Nick, this is what happens when you ignore my advice. After all, aren’t I just a consultant, isn’t that what you wanted me for?” Tony sneers, but Clint can read his growing agitation in the incessant tattoo his fingers beat against the hard oak wood of the table.

 

“I am afraid, my friend, that even had the Director done as he should have, this group would not have believed such a declaration. It is the treacherous nature of war,” Thor says and Clint wonders at the Norse god’s age, wonders how many battles he’s seen carried out, how much destruction.

 

“You should never have fished that out of the ocean,” Bruce says shaking his head. “It’s only caused more trouble than it was worth, first Loki, the Chitauri, now this. How long before we have another invasion?”

 

“Are we even sure stealing the Chitauri weapons is their end game?” Clint questions.

 

Natasha narrows her eyes in his direction. “What are you thinking?”

 

“This feels off somehow. They don’t have the resources for this, not after the revenge bender Stark went on after he built Iron Man. I’ve read the reports, he decimated fifteen compounds. This is too big game for them. If they’re really aiming to pull this off, they’ll need help. And even then they must have read we still don’t know how to operate those weapons, all those reports they looked at were filled with nothing but theory and speculation, no empirical data. Why come after weapons they won’t know how to activate? Why risk themselves like this when the benefit doesn’t outweigh the risks? If Tony and Bruce haven’t figure out the mechanics behind these things, I doubt the Ten Rings has someone who will.”

 

Fury stares at Clint through the screen and he can see the director assessing him, beginning to ponder over the same questions himself.

 

“We need to learn who that unknown party is. Agents Romanoff and Barton, start reaching out, call in whatever favors you have. Whether legal or illegal I don’t care, someone out there knows something about this and I want to know what it is.”

 

“Yes, sir,” they reply in unison and the video feed cuts off.

 

“Tony,” Steve says, “they aren’t taking you again. We won’t let that happen.”

 

Tony huffs out a mirthless laugh. “Cap, even you can’t promise me that, but if they come for me again there’ll be nothing left of them,” he says, his eyes darkened and hard, before walking out of the conference room.

 

Clint doesn’t doubt his words. While he’s read Tony’s file, it doesn’t contain much information on what happened in the three months he spent locked within that cave. Most of the information contained is speculation based on accounts of others who had also had the misfortune of being kidnapped by the Ten Rings. If even half of those speculations are true, Clint can understand why Tony avoids sleep, why he drinks like a fish, and why all the showers in the Tower are the stand up kind.

 

*

 

Tony’s been in the lab for an hour when the doors open and his music shuts off without warning. He’s been on a knife’s edge ever since the impromptu briefing and had come down into his lab for solace, for the type of comfort being surrounded by his creations and his own genius can give him. But there’s little comfort to be had after learning the Ten Rings is still operating, that despite all he had done, they were still standing, plotting. He feels a swell of irritation at the sudden intrusion, only for it to melt away when he turns around to see Pepper.

 

“There was a board of directors meeting this morning, Tony. You missed it.”

 

The way she folds her arms, along with the resigned look in her eyes and her hesitant steps, disconcert him. He’s seen Pepper seething with fury, has seen her cry of pure joy and relief. He’s seen the way Pepper looks at him when he’s drunk too much, the way her lips tighten into a thin, pale, bloodless line. He’s seen the way Pepper’s eyes have hardened as she sent off the numerous women he slept with. He’s seen Pepper stand tall with determination, feet solidly on the ground, eyes steely with the strength needed to run a Fortune 500 company.

 

He’s never seen her hesitate.

 

He’s never seen her step falter like it did just this moment as she ambled into the workshop. He’s never seen the resigned look in her eyes—not aimed at him. The looks he was used to were of fond exasperation; no matter the situation there was always a hint of fondness in her gaze when she looked his way.

 

Pepper looks tired in a way he’s never seen her before, smaller too, though he guesses that’s because she’s out of her customary, ever present high heels.

 

Nausea curdles in his stomach when he realizes the fondness has been replaced with a quiet, yet sad, resignation. 

 

They haven’t spent much time together since the invasion, since Tony gave in to his impulses and invited the Avengers to move into the tower. While the tower underwent repairs, Pepper had been staying in a hotel in the city, overseeing the plans to move the company’s headquarters to the city. But the reconstruction finished weeks ago and Pepper has yet to move in. He questions whether or not he should move out, get a separate space for him and Pepper and leave the tower for the rest of the Avengers.

 

“Tony.”

 

His name is a sigh on her lips.

 

“Pep.”

 

“This isn’t working anymore, Tony.”

 

“Pep, no come on. I went to that dinner last week, showed the board those new designs. This morning was just…something came up is all.” He wasn’t telling Pepper about the Ten Rings. If he does, she would be frantic with worry they would come for him again and Pepper doesn’t need that. She already has enough to worry about trying to manage a company that has taken far too many financial hits over the past few years and god knows how many PR hits since he was born.

 

“That’s not what I meant, Tony. Even before all of this, you weren’t much for managing the company. I can handle that about you. I—” Tony’s never heard Pepper stutter before, never seen her wring her hands, but she is and he doesn’t know what to do with that so he picks up whatever piece of tech is closest and starts dismantling it. “Tony look at me.” And when he does she stills, taking a breath as if gathering her strength. “I meant us, Tony. We aren’t working anymore.” 

 

He flinches back when the loud crash of the tablet he was halfway to dismantling clatters to the floor, loose pieces scattering every which way. Fighting the burning in his eyes, he scrambles to pick up the pieces—the tablet’s screen is cracked, irreparable. Smaller hands join his in an effort to pick up the tiny loose screws, but Tony rises and steps away, leaves the dismantled tablet strewn on the floor.

 

“You’re breaking up with me.”

 

If he’s honest with himself, he’ll admit to having been waiting for this moment. He and everyone else have known that Pepper deserved better than what she was getting with him. She deserved someone who was attentive, who would remember their anniversaries, who remembered that strawberries caused her to break out in hives and made her mouth burn. Pepper deserved someone who made her life easier, not harder.

 

Considering she’s the one terminating their relationship, Pepper looks distraught. There are tears in her eyes she is struggling to keep in check, though her efforts don’t prevent the reddening of her eyes, nose, and cheeks. She appears as if she’s lost something precious to her, which confuses Tony because she is the one leaving, not him.

 

“Yes, but it’s not—” Pepper steps closer and Tony can’t help the one step he takes back, can’t help crossing his arms over his chest. The flinch she fails to hide causes hot regret to well within him, but not enough to take it back. She wrings her hands, fingers twisting the ring around one of her fingers.

 

“You don’t need me anymore, Tony. I’m not sure you ever really did, at least not in that way.”

 

Her words cement the thought that’s been rattling around in Tony’s mind since she stammered out her words: He doesn’t understand, any of this. He didn’t need her anymore? Tony needed her more than he needed anyone else. Pepper was his constant, his grounding point whenever he flew too high and needed to be brought back down to Earth. Pepper steadied him and kept his self-destructive tendencies in check—for the most part. But the point remained that with Pepper around Tony drank less, left the soothing confines of his workshop more often, ate at semi-regular intervals, and even made it a point to spend more nights sleeping in his own bed because he knew she would be there waiting for him, a comforting warmth by his side—though admittedly without her living in the tower all of these things occurred less often and he spent more nights in the workshop than not.

 

“Pep, I love you.” 

 

Her smile is as watery as the day he came home from Afghanistan; it doesn’t reach her eyes.

 

“I know you do and I do too, I’ll always care about you. But…that’s not enough, Tony. I—I’ve gone back to being your assistant. I spend more time nagging you about board meetings and R&D design preparation than I spend being your girlfriend. You have a whole team looking out for you, who give you a purpose beyond the company. You don’t need me like you used to and I need that, Tony. I need to feel more than wanted, I need to feel needed and you don’t need me anymore than you would a friend and an assistant, that isn’t enough to sustain a relationship.”

 

“Can we talk about this?”

 

A stray piece of hair falls loose out of her bun when she shakes her head and curls around her cheek. He resists the urge to step forward and push it behind her ear.

 

“I need to do this, Tony. For the both of us.”

 

Pepper leaves as quietly as she came in, though in the still silence of the workshop her footsteps echo.

 

Tony stands there for a while, enveloped in a silence that holds a too heavy weight, staring at the broken, scattered pieces of his work and the lone ring that sits atop the work desk. 

 

A half hour later the workshop is in critical lockdown. The music from the speakers is a blaring cacophonous sound and a half a bottle of whiskey flows through Tony’s blood. With each passing moment the world is becoming more of a haze and Tony lets go, sinking deeper and deeper until the weight in his chest is nothing but a warm burn. At one point, Dummy tries sneaking the bottle from the workbench, but Tony proves too fast and snatches it back, taking another swig, embracing the slow burn spreading in his chest.

 

*

 

Trickshot enters Afghanistan as the sun rises in the horizon and arrives in Kandahar at around three in the afternoon.

 

The last time Trickshot was in Afghanistan he was on a job with Duquesne, before they had attracted too much attention and had decided to part ways. Even now, years later, he feels a bitter stab when he thinks that for Duquesne, parting ways had meant trying to take him out with a bullet to the head. It was that lesson, above all, that taught Trickshot the fluid nature of loyalty. People are only loyal to those who prove advantageous, who are useful, who provide more benefit than risk to keep around. And when their use runs out, when they’re more trouble than they’re worth, when they become loose ends to be tied up, they should be put down like a rabid dog. Loose ends are unpredictable and cannot be afforded. It's this hard learned lesson that allows him to push back the bitter regret, to pull the trigger and to tie up the loose ends that come with the job, though he's never enjoyed taking a life that he wasn't paid to take. It was a waste, plain and simple. And if half formed memories of a woman with clear blue eyes whispering words of love came to mind, while together they caught butterflies in the yard only to release them once more, he sets them aside. Too much time has passed from then; he isn’t the same anymore and she’s somewhere he can’t follow, at least not yet.

 

Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan and there are people littering the streets everywhere he turns. The weather is a drastic difference to that of Russia and he can't help the shiver that runs down his spine when he thinks of the harsh Russian winter spent in a broken down, ramshackle building, shivering as he tried to staunch the blood of a job gone bad. Focusing on the sweat dripping off his skin, on the warmth seeping through and looking up at the hot, blinding sun, he thinks he prefers scorching summers instead. The weather reminds him of his mother, the skies above him a parallel to the clear blue eyes that never failed to make him think of the blooming spring. With effort, he pushes the thoughts of her away into the recesses of his mind and gets out of the car. 

 

The address the employer led him to turns out to be a decrepit warehouse in the middle of an abandoned industrial district. Trickshot tries not to roll his eyes at the obvious cliché as he makes his way to the entrance. The instructions given to him state he is to meet someone here, though he doesn’t know what for. The inside of the warehouse is dark, the only light coming in through the holes in the walls and ceilings. Shadows fall across every surface and for a heartbeat he thinks the warehouse is empty, but before he turns back he notices a crack of light coming from one of the doors to the left. The plaque on the walls reads “MANAGER,” the Pashto and Dari letters underneath; but before he can outstretch a hand to turn the doorknob, the door swings wide open.

 

“Finally. I was about to call, thought you might have gotten stuck at one of the border crossings or just bailed on this idiotic mission altogether. Come on in, we got plans to make. I’m Rumlow.”

 

Trickshot only hesitates a minute before walking in after the man who is covered in tactical gear from head to foot, heavy duty combat boots laced on his feet. It’s obvious his presence has been expected.  He can read in Rumlow’s movements that he is some sort of agent—though Trickshot’s not sure whose—and has had military training. He has a strong jaw covered in at least a week’s worth of stubble and a voice that speaks of authority—he’s someone who is used to being in charge, used to dictating orders and having them followed without protest. Trickshot already knows they won’t be getting along; hell, ever since Duquesne he has worked alone. Duquesne taught him that a partner was another loose end.

 

The office is compact compared to the warehouse’s main room, but there’s a desk littered with laptops and a bed pressed against the far left wall, beside a door marked “RESTROOM.” The old, yellowed, abandoned books lining the small bookshelf on the right only confirm what he’s suspected: the warehouse and the surrounding buildings were owned by some U.S corporation. Although, he’s pretty certain it belongs to whoever hired him. He’s learned that certain groups do that, buy old, abandoned buildings that were owned by some American corporation. It’s a sick joke, terrorists cells establishing bases in American made buildings.

 

When he notices Rumlow resting against the desk, he says, “Trickshot,” by way of greeting.

 

Rumlow raises an eyebrow and snorts. “I swear there must be something in the water.”

 

Before Trickshot can reply, though, the door to the restroom swings open to reveal a masked man in tactical gear, his face framed by brown, wet hair. Normally, he wouldn’t think anything of the man and his mask, after all, in their line of work keeping your identity a secret was as important as getting paid. But the man has an entire arm made out of metal, and that, Trickshot thinks, isn’t fucking normal.

 

Looking into the stranger’s eyes reminds him of a pale, lifeless blue and endless Russian winters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Grins maniacally* Penny for your thoughts? 
> 
> This is getting more exciting, isn't it? I already started the fourth chapter and I'm hoping to write and post two more chapters before the end of the year. I can't really say when the next update will be because I'm still working on my research manuscript (I know way too much about distress tolerance) and I have four other papers to write. Plus, my dear aunt is coming to visit on the 9th and will be staying with me for two weeks (why she feels the need to visit me during the busy month of November I will never know, there is a thing called summer lol). Oh! 
> 
> So I made a tumblr specifically for my writing stuff (though I keep accidentally posting things that don't belong there!). It's selfdefibrillation.tumblr.com. 
> 
> Feel free to hound me for updates or sneak peeks and enjoy me venting my frustrations when I loose plot ideas because I am an epic failure because I forget to write these things down!!! I gotta be honest, I lost track of what I planned for Ch. 4 and it was going to be so good too! I will get it back somehow! It's in my brain...somewhere. Or scribbled somewhere on the margins of my systems of care notes. Thank you to everyone that has bookmarked this, subscribed, left me lovely comments, and gave me kudos!! Means a lot and it makes me very excited to be sharing my stories with you all :) You're all amazing!
> 
> *Disclaimer: I've actually no idea if former U.S owned buildings are bought by terrorists groups.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I got a headache and you were sleeping."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!! Massive apology for the monstrously delayed update. Words would just not come for this fic even though I knew what I wanted to happen. I'm working on it though! And this plot is slowly, but surely, developing. This chapter is not beta'd. As soon as my beta reviews this and gives me suggestions I will update it though. I don't expect major alterations, just some stylistic changes. Also I know this chapter was short compared to the other ones, but I felt like the length was appropriate for the events covered. When I wrote the end it felt like it should end there and the thought of adding anything seemed off somehow. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> 7/15/15: Beta'd by cheerfuldisposition :) Thanks, Dear!

Clint breathes out, focuses on his mark, lets his arrow fly. He’s been in the range for the better part of two hours, letting arrow after arrow loose, shoulders burning with satisfaction at each _thunk_ , fingers thrumming with boundless energy.

 

Nock.

 

Loose.

 

Repeat.

  

When he finishes his workout, Clint lets the savoring smell of Steve’s breakfast guide him into the kitchen. He swears JARVIS redirects the smells through the air vents on purpose. He hears the others before he sees them, their murmuring voices sounding too insentient, too serious for eight o’clock in the morning. Clint hovers at the edge, listening, wondering if they’re talking about him. He still hasn’t gone to the SHIELD psych department to get evaluated and while Natasha has loosened her leash around him now that she knows he isn’t going to run any time soon, she still makes sure he’s eaten and slept at least four hours a night. He’s begun laying awake in bed, counting down the time until he can leave, none the wiser. He doesn’t know how long he can keep this up though.

 

Clint ducks back into the hallway where the elevator is and with careful maneuvering, unhinges the air vent above him and worms his way inside until he finds himself laying atop the kitchen, peeking through the air vent above the table.

 

“How long has it been?” asks Steve, closing the refrigerator door, a glass of orange juice in his hands.

 

“Five days today,” answers a weary Bruce, a hand running over his haggard face, body hunched over the table. 

 

“’Tis a most tragic affair,” comes Thor’s solemn voice, “to lose a loved one in such a manner.”

 

“Bruce maybe if you tried again he would answer. Tell him you left something in his lab,” Natasha says.

 

Bruce shakes his head. “He isn’t letting me in. He’d probably have Dum-E come to the door and give it to me instead.”

 

“Doesn’t someone have override codes in case of an emergency?” Steve questions, leaning against the counter. For once, Clint thinks Steve may have slept the entire night. His eyes are brighter, his movements less sluggish. Clint even thinks he saw the Captain drawing again as he sat on the common room’s windowsill.

 

“Pepper has the codes and she’s in Malibu overseeing the final transfers of the company’s HQ,” Natasha says. 

 

“He’ll come out when he’s ready to,” Bruce says.

 

“Aye, you are correct, my friend. Our Man of Iron must experience his grief in order to move on,” Thor proclaims.

 

“Stark doesn’t grieve, he self-destructs,” Natasha states, cocking her head as if in consideration, eyes ransacking the room until she meets Clint’s gaze and calls out, “I know you’re there. You need a shower, the smell gave you away.”

 

Clint hops down from the ventilation system and lands next to Steve who sends a tiny smirk his way.

 

“Is there a reason you blew my cover here, Tash?” Clint asks, dusting himself off.

 

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Yes. You’re going to get Stark out of his self imposed exile.”

 

“Uh, what?”

 

“You heard me, Barton. The man won’t respond to any of us. He’s even blocked Banner’s access to the lab.”

 

“Yeah, he and Pepper broke up. I would want my space too, after that.”

 

“He’s been down there for days, Clint,” Bruce sighs, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine he’s been taking care of himself all the while either. He won’t even let any of us in to bring him food. I’m half convinced he’s been surviving off of motor oil these past few days.”

 

“Case in point. If he isn’t letting any of you in, what makes you think I’ll be successful? And even if I do somehow get in there, then what? Do I drag him out kicking and screaming? Knock him out and throw him over my shoulder? Force feed him?”

 

“You tell me,” Natasha says.

 

“What?”

 

“Well, you and Stark certainly spent a lot of time together before he locked himself away,” she says and if Clint didn’t know her as well as he did he may have missed the acidic undertone to her words.

 

“Tasha…”

 

“She’s right,” Steve says. “You know him better than we do.”

 

Clint shakes his head. “No, nu-uh. He and Bruce spend hours in the lab,” he says, pointing an accusatory finger at the man in question.

 

Bruce shrugs. “We don’t talk much.”

 

“You guys talk every morning.”

 

“About studies, experiments, theories, ideas—science.”

 

Clint’s eyes roam the room, trying to find someone willing to go instead or at least agree with him about what a horrible idea this is. He isn’t the comforting type, has no idea how to approach this. No one answers his silent appeal.

 

“Fine. Alright. But if he ends up jumping off the landing pad without the suit on don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

Clint walks towards the liquor cabinet and takes out a bottle of tequila.

 

“Clint,” Natasha says, a warning in her tone.

 

“I believe our Man of Iron has had enough Midgardian mead, my friend,” Thor supplies.

 

“You want it my way, you’re getting it my way,” he says turning to rummage around in the fridge. He pulls out the cartoons of leftover Chinese food they ordered the previous night. Grabbing a bag from the cupboard, he puts everything inside, including two forks and four bottled waters. 

 

*

 

By the time Clint crawls to the vents above Tony’s lab he is covered in a layer of dust, knees and elbow aching with sharp pain. He can feel the vibrations of Tony’s music reverberating through the vents. He thinks, Tony better appreciate this, loosens the screws of the air vent, hoists the mediocre bag of supplies to his shoulder, and jumps down.

 

The workshop is in disarray; and, really, Clint should have expected this—when is the workshop not in a constant state of chaos?—but Tony’s usual chaos somehow had an air of order, as if all the scattered wires and tools were scattered that way on purpose. This time, though, the wires, tools, and odd gadgets are scatted in a craze. Clint glances at his feet and finds he landed on the organs of a tablet. When he moves the pieces crunch under his boot.

 

Tony is slumped over his desk, fiddling with parts of the suit, monitors around him illuminated with lines of code. Empty bottles and half filled coffee mugs cover the desk. Tony looks pale and gaunt, thinner. His hands are covered in black smudges, fingernails crusted with blood and grease.

 

“The others are worried about you, you know,” Clint says pulling up a chair opposite, plopping the bag of food on the desk between them.

 

Music is blaring around them and for a moment Clint wonders if Tony heard him when the man glances up, hands stilling. Tony’s eyes are bloodshot.

 

“That so?” he says, fiddling with the parts once more. He crosses wires, nicking a finger on a sharp edge in the process. Red trails down his finger, gets smeared on the wires, smudges covering the gold of the piece.

 

“Think they’re worried you’re going to die down here if we let you.” Clint picks up a gauntlet, pokes at the fingers. “Improving dexterity?”

 

“Amongst other things. So, what, they sent you down here to keep me from kicking the figurative bucket?”

 

A smile tugs at Clint’s lips, but he bites it back. “Something like that.” He takes out the food, pushes a box over to Tony. “I brought food. Chinese. You’re going to eat it and then down an entire bottle of water before you fall over dead and I get charged with negligence.”

 

Tony grunts, poking and prodding at the circuits in front of him. Clint pulls out food for himself, leans back in his chair, props his feet up on the desk, and eats. After a while, Tony wipes his hands with a rag and picks up his food.

 

“So, you gonna tell me how there are more fish in the sea, Barton?”

 

Clint raises an eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”

 

Tony takes another bite of his egg roll, shrugs.

 

“Well, there are, but no two fishes are the same.”  

 

Tony smiles and it is tired, a small up quirk of his lips that doesn’t reach his eyes.

 

After they finish eating, Clint makes Tony drink a whole bottle of water before he grabs a tablet, checks the encryption, and signs into an email belonging to one of his aliases. Days ago, once they finished the conference with Fury, he sent out feelers, encrypted messages to his contacts in the seedy underbelly of life the world over. He even cashed in a few favors. Yet, all he has are vague rumors, a rising sense of suspicion as people begin to pay attention. Nothing definitive, though, nothing Natasha and he hadn’t already suspected.

 

They continue on this way, he and Tony, in quiet silence—Tony muttering to himself as he tweaks lines of code, Clint wiping the dust off old aliases.

 

Hours later, Clint is pulling himself into the same vent he came in through. He stays in the vents until he unscrews the one above his room. Inside, he heads to his closet, grabs the flattened duffel, and throws in a few sets of clothes. When he finishes he climbs back into the vent and makes his way back.

 

He doesn’t try to clean the workshop, but he does sweep the floors with the help of Dum-E after the second time his boots crunch over glass and wire. He also cleans Tony’s work area, dumping cold coffee down the sink, letting the empty coffee stained mugs pile up. When he swipes the last one, he hears something clatter on the floor.

 

It’s a ring.

 

Clint stares at it, crouched down on the floor. It’s a simple silver band with a red diamond. Clint stares and stares until the music rises, and then he sets the ring down in front of Tony.

 

“Don’t,” Tony says, though Clint had resolved himself to silence. “We weren’t—I didn’t,” Tony gestures as he speaks, hands curling in muted expression, “we weren’t engaged.” Tony looks down at the ring before nudging it with a finger, the diamond catches the light, sparkles red like blood. “It was my mother’s. I gave it to Pepper after the whole Vanko fiasco. I didn’t propose, though, didn’t say anything really, just left it on her desk.” Tony’s voice is steady; Clint wonders if anyone else knew about this. “She wore it, sometimes it would hang from her neck in a chain, other times she put it on a finger. We weren’t going to get married or anything, god knows I’m not made for marriage.” Tony takes a deep breath, considers the ring, and puts it in a cup bursting with random pieces of tech.

 

Clint empties the last mug, takes his usual seat, and checks in with Natasha and Fury, leaving Tony to his noisy ministrations. He spends the rest of the day reading files, researching possible leads.

 

*

 

In the morning, his back and neck crack when he stretches. His joints ache and he considers bringing in an air mattress down here because, while he has trained himself to sleep anywhere, anytime, in any position, he isn’t as young as he used to be and the soft tempur-pedic bed on his floor has undoubtedly ruined him.

 

“God, how have you been sleeping down here without ruining your back?” Clint mutters, rubbing his neck, yawning. 

 

Tony raises an eyebrow over the cup of coffee cradled in his hands. “Right,” Clint says, “you haven’t been sleeping, at all. Why did I think otherwise?” Clint stretches once more and slips the knife he hid on his person as he slept into his duffle.

 

“No one asked you to stay down here,” Tony says, reading on his tablet. Out of the edge of his vision, Clint sees charts and graphs. Simulation results, he guesses.

 

“Yeah, well, someone has to look after our resident hermit,” he says, heading over to the coffee machine in the corner counter. 

 

“I take offense to that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could sue you for slander.”

 

“It’s not slander if it’s true.”

 

“Hmm touché,” Tony concedes.

 

For a while, all Clint hears is the hum of the coffee machine and the soft tapping of Tony’s fingers. “There’s no music. You always have music.”

 

Clint expects a sarcastic remark, but all he gets is, “I got a headache. And you were sleeping.”

 

“How long was I out, anyway?”

 

“Few hours,” Tony says, still immersed in his results. “Why?”

 

Clint shrugs, “Just wondering.” He picks up his coffee, makes his way back to his seat.

 

Tony’s gaze travels over him and Clint can feel his silent assessment, but he doesn’t comment, so neither does Clint.

 

They spend the day much like they did yesterday. Tony tinkers and Clint encrypts and decrypts messages. There are rumors surrounding Russia—he sends those files to Natasha, not trusting himself to sort bullshit from reality where the Russians are concerned.

 

Music blares once more and Tony is quiet as AC/DC lyrics rip through the air. Clint would be concerned, except Tony’s hands are steady and his eyes aren’t as bloodshot.

 

He doesn’t mention the unopened bottle of tequila he smuggled in the day before.

 

Three days pass this way, with Tony absently working and Clint keeping quiet company, sometimes checking in with contacts, other times disassembling and cleaning his bow.

 

Once he finishes with his bow, Clint brings down his handguns and rifles. He’s disassembling his L115A3 AWM rifle when Tony looks over at him, his gaze critical, and says, “I’m a little offended, I make better rifles than that.”

 

“You _made_ better rifles than this,” Clint corrects, pressing the cleaning rod into the barrel.

 

Tony rolls his eyes. “How many rounds can you hold? And how’s your scope?”

 

“Five, detachable magazine, day or night scope. Why? What are you thinking?” Clint asks, narrowing his eyes.

 

Tony picks up the scope, sights through it. “I can think of a few modifications.”

 

“Knock yourself out, Shellhead,” Clint says, tilting his head to hide his grin.

 

The rest of the day is spent with Tony modifying his rifle and Clint cleaning the rest of his guns. It'

s calm and peaceful in a way Clint hasn’t experienced since before the invasion, since before a hammer fell out of the sky and a god came tumbling down, since before SHIELD fished a glowing blue cube out of the ocean.

 

Then one day Fury calls and says, “We found a body in a ditch.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Your comments, kudos, and reviews keep me going! <3 I hope you're all having a fantastic start to the new year!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury says "We found a body in a ditch" and it's a mad dash for information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are back to longer chapters! I hope you all like it! 
> 
> This has been beta'd by the wonderful Cheerfuldisposition. Thank you, my dear, for always being willing to read all I send you. It means more than you know :)

**Five days ago…**

 

Trickshot scrubs his hands and the water in the sink runs red.

 

_“He have a name?” Trickshot asked, looking over at the masked man._

_“Winter,” Rumlow said._

_Trickshot eyed Winter for a moment, the man was silent and still, but his eyes… They held a storm waiting to rage free._

There’s blood crusted around and beneath his nails. Annoyed, he slathers more soap onto his hands and scrubs harder.

 

_“I need you to get rid of someone,” Rumlow said._

_“Who?”_

_“This kid we kidnapped. Don’t need her anymore.”_

_“What’d you use her for?”_

_“Doesn’t matter,” Rumlow said, then met his gaze straight on. “Don’t want her ID’d yet, either.”_

_“Okay,” he said and moved to get a fire torch and pliers._

He rinses his hands and the water in the sink runs clear. 

 

*

 

“Meet Damienne O’Connor. Found two days ago, dead five.”

 

The face of a young woman—in her early twenties at best—with light brown hair and gold eyes appears on the monitor beside the conference screen showing Fury’s form.

 

“She was found in the outskirts of Kandahar,” Fury continues and a map of the city and its surrounding region is brought to focus, a red pin marking the body’s location.

 

“You found her two days ago. Why are we finding out about this now?” Steve wonders.

 

“Fingernails and teeth were removed. Messy—whoever it was didn’t have surgical experience. Fingerprints were also burned off,” Natasha states, looking down at the pictures in their briefing file. “Somebody didn’t want her found, at least not too soon.”

 

Fury nods. “We only ID’d her about an hour ago.”

 

Clint opens his own file. Damienne’s face no longer resembles that of the carefree young woman on the monitor. It is mangled and bloody. Her body used and abused. For a moment Clint’s mind flashes and his vision turns blue. He grits his teeth, grips the file harder, the paper crinkling at the edges.

 

“These injuries are extensive. She was tortured,” Bruce says.

 

“The cuts and contusions on her chest are consistent with torture. Some were made hours before time of death, others days. The measures taken to hide her identity were done around time of death, though the fingernails showed slight signs of growth. Coroner says the nail beds show about two to three weeks of growth.”

 

“She gave them what they wanted,” Natasha says.  “Official cause of death?”

 

“Single gun shot wound to the head,” Fury says.

 

“What were her connections?” Clint asks, because he knows this game. If there are no teeth, no fingerprints, they have to rely on DNA. Or a missing person’s report, but Damienne’s face is too unrecognizable and trying to find a match would take weeks, not days.

 

“I knew her,” Tony says and Clint turns to him, watches Tony’s fingers sweep the picture’s edges. “Hired her straight out of MIT.”

 

On the screen, Fury eyes Tony and nods. “Employed three years as a high ranking technical analyst. Your people reported her missing three weeks ago when she didn’t show up two days in a row for work.”

 

“Pepper didn’t tell me,” Tony says, staring at the photograph.

 

Bruce turns to Tony. “Any next of kin?”

 

“Not much. Her parents died when she was young and she was put in foster care for a while ‘till she aged out. She had an estranged second cousin in Arizona. Girlfriend, too, named Elie. Only met her a couple times. Still lives in New York, as far as I know,” Tony says. 

 

Clint catches Natasha’s eye.

 

“Sir, Natasha and I can check out her home. Maybe pay a visit to the girlfriend.”

 

“I’m coming with,” Tony says.

 

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. Whoever took her could be after you, Tony,” Steve says.

 

Tony rolls his eyes. “Honestly, Cap, the thought never crossed my mind.”

 

“Tony—”

 

Tony shrugs. “People are always trying to kidnap me.”

 

“Thought the attempts died down when you unveiled Iron Man,” Clint says.

 

“Yeah, well, one thing can be said for terrorists—they aren’t quitters,” Tony says.

 

Steve frowns. “I still don’t feel comfortable with you going to her apartment. It could be a trap, they might have bugged the place for all we know.”

 

“I appreciate the concern, Steve, really I do, but I’m going. Besides I’m sure the Wonder Twins here will keep me safe, right Legolas?”

 

Clint rolls his eyes, but nods nonetheless.

 

Steve turns to the monitor with Fury’s face. “Has SHIELD done a preliminary sweep of the area?”

 

Fury shakes his head, stern. “I’m keeping this strictly in house. The less people who know, the better. And frankly, SHIELD doesn’t have enough agents to spare for this.”

 

Clint bites the inside of his cheek, tries not to think of how many SHIELD lives he was responsible for ending. Natasha leans closer, pressing her thigh against his own. He lets himself lean against her, if just for a moment.

 

“Area incident reports appear normal, nothing unusual. A few public disturbances and several citations of buildings in need of repair,” Fury says. “Barton, Romanoff, you have permission to approach and interrogate. Remember people, this stays out of the news. Last thing we need are civilians panicking.”

 

Pretty sure they haven’t stopped, Clint wants to say, but manages to hold his tongue.

 

*

 

**Two days ago…**

 

Trickshot dreams in shades of red.

 

In his dream, his hands are sticky. His stomach churns. He tries to get up, but he slips and falls, landing on his hands and knees. He is in a puddle of red, warm and wet. His mother won’t like this, he thinks, her clean floor covered in his baby brother’s red paint. When he gets his feet steady beneath him, his knees are red.

 

Clint is going to be in so much trouble, he thinks. He should clean up, before their dad gets home and stumbles on the mess. He shudders to think of the consequences.

 

He sees then, that the red isn’t a puddle, but a sea, extending past the kitchen into the living room, soaking into the carpet. The smell hits him then and it smells nothing like his brother’s paints. It smells like pennies and, on instinct, he brings his hands over his nose to cover the sweet stench, but that only serves to spread the red and some smudges onto his top lip.

 

He licks it and it tastes like iron.

 

As he swallows, the dread growing in his stomach, he realizes. It isn’t paint.

 

Trickshot shoots up straight from where he lay on the couch, struggling to get his breathing under control. A screech alerts him to the warehouse door being opened. He cranes his neck over the couch and watches as Rumlow enters the warehouse carrying a black duffle bag. His steps are heavy, echoing in the metal enclosed space.

 

“We need to go. Start packing.”

 

Trickshot starts shoving his weapons and a few shirts and pants back into the travel bag by his feet. He doesn’t have much to pack—didn’t pack much to begin with, unpacked even less.

 

Rumlow sets the bag on the table and unzips it. Reaching in, he takes out a rifle case.

 

“They find the body?” Trickshot asks.

 

“Yeah. A matter of time now before they ID it.”

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“We need to lay low for a while. Boss’ orders.”

 

*

 

“Jesus, this place smells like a dump,” Tony says, walking inside the apartment. He pushes his sunglasses up his head and holds his phone out. “JARVIS sweep the place for bugs.”

 

“Probably expired food in the fridge,” Clint says.

 

Natasha wrinkles her nose and goes about opening the windows.

 

Damienne lived in a studio loft overlooking a street of storefronts in the middle of Manhattan. The loft is spacious, yet crammed. Tech sits on every surface. Clint wonders if this is how Tony’s first apartment looked like.

 

He makes his way around the studio. Several tablets are in the living room and one in the kitchen. Cables and wires litter the coffee table. A circuit board rests on the kitchen table, unfinished.

 

He passes his gloved fingers over the kitchen counter, a line breaking through the thick layer of dust.

 

“Looks like no one’s been here since she went missing.”

 

“SHIELD file said the police came in a few days after the report was made. They left when they found no sign of forced entry or foul play,” Natasha says, scanning the shelves lining the living room walls.

 

“Well, they got that part right,” Clint says.

 

“Her drive’s been wiped,” Tony says from across the floor, sitting at the desk beside the main window overlooking the crowded street. “Back up drive, too.”

 

“She doesn’t have a fail safe back-up to her back-up?” Clint asks, coming up behind him.

 

“I’m checking now,” Tony says. “Ah, knew there was a reason I hired you, kid. Got it. All the project files have to do with SI, except for this group right here.” He clicks open a number of files and lines of code fill the screen. “Looks like a tracking algorithm.”

 

Clint scans over his shoulder. “Question is, what was it tracking.”

 

“Guess we’ll find out when we get back to the lab.” Tony takes out a small circular tech tab and attaches it to Damienne’s server. “I’m taking everything,” he says and taps his phone, “JARVIS transfer everything into a separate server and encrypt it.” 

 

“She was an easy target,” Natasha says. She walks over to them, a tablet in hand. “She kept the same routine, took the same route to work every morning.”

 

“GPS tracking data?” Clint asks, looking at the map on the screen.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Why do I feel like I’ve entered the adult version of Spy Kids?” Tony says.

 

Clint smirks. “That’s what happens when you invite SHIELD agents to live with you.”

 

Tony glares at him. “I’ve half a mind to take the invitation back, bird brain.”

 

“Please, admit it, at this point life would be too boring without us.”

 

Tony grins. “Ah, sadly that is true.”

 

Natasha smacks them over the back of their heads. “Focus. There’s a hole in her firewall. That’s how I got her GPS data.”

 

“Yeah,” Tony says, getting back to work on the computer system, “someone hacked her and left a backdoor for themselves—Damienne mustn’t have noticed. They had access to everything.”

 

“What were the SI files on?” Clint asks.

 

Tony waves away his concern. “Nothing major, couple of spec files and patent forms. Stuff people like Hammer would want, nothing a terrorist organization would need. People steal these when they want to hurt SI’s profit margins—not that stealing these would even cause a dent. Anyway, these specs are a few months old, now. Products were already announced and most of the specs shared. They’re already in production and after that there’s nothing these files contain of specs someone wouldn’t be able to find out by cracking open the new phones and tablets.”

 

“And the patents?”

 

“Already filed and glistening with a stamp of government approval.”

 

“I don’t understand. What were they after then?”

 

“That tracking program any special?” Natasha asks.

 

“Don’t know. It seems basic enough, but I won’t really know ‘till I go through the full code,” Tony says.

 

“We need to figure out who took her,” Clint says. He turns to Natasha. “Did you find a phone?”

 

She frowns. “No.”

 

“She wasn’t grabbed here, then,” Tony says.

 

“Your company reported her missing on a Friday morning. That means she was taken sometime Wednesday morning or Tuesday night,” Clint says.

 

“GPS shows she got home Tuesday night at 9pm,” Natasha says. “She must have been taken Wednesday morning on her way to work.”

 

Tony opens the GPS program on Damienne’s computer and zooms in on the map.

 

“Most street shops have cameras that face the street,” he says. He looks up at Clint and Natasha. “I need to go back to the tower and hack security feeds. We may be able to see her kidnapping. We all done here?”

 

Clint glances at Natasha, who nods. “Yeah, we’re good here.”

 

Tony closes the documents and sighs. “Time to give a death notice, then.”

 

*

 

Eliska Rose lives in an old brownstone building that sits in east Harlem. The neighborhood is bustling with people walking down scorched sidewalks and driving around small craters in the roads. The people are loud and boisterous. Music emanates from someone’s open window, a slow jazz sound in sharp contrast with the chaos of the world outside. Eliska’s windows are open, the curtains blowing in the breeze, but the apartment is silent.

 

When Clint knocks on the door, a young woman with blue eyes and dark skin opens it.

 

“Can I help you?”

 

Beside him, Tony steps forward. “Hi, Elie.”

 

“Mr. Stark? What—what are you doing here?” Her eyes widen and worry lines crease her forehead. “Is—is this about Damie?”

 

Natasha glances over at Clint and he gives an answering shrug. He doesn’t know how well Tony knew Damienne or her girlfriend, but it’s apparent he knows them better than they thought. It’s possible they don’t know Tony as well as they thought, either.

 

“Mind if we come in?” Tony asks. He moves to step forward, but Eliska blocks the door, shaking her head. “Elie—”

 

Tears fill her eyes. “Is she dead?”

 

Tony bows his head, takes a breath, and meets Eliska’s eyes. “She was found three days ago. I’m sorry, Elie.”

 

“Oh, god.” She puts a hand over hear mouth in an attempt to stifle a sob, but they hear the hitch in her breath anyway.

 

Clint sees Tony take Eliska’s other hand and squeeze. He wonders who had notified the dead SHILED agents’ family members, wonders if they had someone there to hold their hands.

 

“Elie, can you let us in?” Tony asks again and this time she stands to the side and pulls the door wide open.

 

The three of them are led into a sitting room, where the sun spills in from a window’s drawn curtains. Clint sits beside Natasha, in one of the corner chairs that provide a full view of the room and lets him see outside the nearest window Tony sits in front of.

 

“Can I see her?” she asks, as she sits down on one of the chairs.

 

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Elie.”

 

Eliska runs her fingers through her curly hair, puts her head between her knees.

 

“We can come back another day. You don’t have to do this now,” Tony says.

 

Eliska’s head comes up. “No.” She wipes her eyes and with a breath, stands up straighter. “If you’re here, it’s important.” She clasps her shaking hands together. “Tell me what happened. Where did you find her?”

 

Tony shifts, eyes drifting over him and Natasha, his hands clenched on his chair’s armrests. For a second, Clint thinks of offering his own hand, give Tony something to hang onto. This is probably Tony’s first time notifying someone their loved one is dead.

 

“Kandahar, Afghanistan,” Clint says.

 

“What? I don’t,” Eliska shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Why would she be there?”

 

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Tony says.

 

“When was the last time you saw her?” Natasha asks, leaning forward. Her body language is open, encouraging Eliska to speak, to trust.

 

“Tuesday, April 7th. We got drinks to celebrate her promotion. I walked her home.”

 

Clint sees Tony fidget from the corner of his eye.

 

“We think someone took her,” Clint says.

 

This time, Eliska doesn’t try to cover her eyes when they fill and spill over. “Why would someone take her? She never hurt anybody, she’s—she was a _good_ person.”

 

“I know she was, Elie. She was the best. And we’re going to do everything we can to find out who took her,” Tony says.

 

“Did Damienne mention meeting anyone new?” Natasha asks.

 

“No, no, she didn’t even go out much. She was really into her work. We both are—were.”

 

“Was she working on anything private? Anything outside of work?” Clint asks.

 

“She was really excited about this tracking algorithm she was working on. It was supposed to protect against hackers by tracking anyone who entered a network. It would track what files they had accessed, predict which ones they would go after next and try to delete them from the system before they could be accessed. We tried it a few times, but it wasn’t finished yet.”

 

If that was all Damienne had been working on, Clint can’t figure out why someone would target her. If her kidnappers needed someone to hack SHIELD, why risk taking someone with a high profile job? Why someone from SI? Sure, SI employed some of the best minds, but there are hackers the world over. And why take someone from the U.S if they were going to Afghanistan? Why not take someone closer?

 

“Are you sure there was nothing else?” he asks.

 

Eliska nods. “Damienne couldn’t help talking about what she was working on, was always so excited to—” a sob escapes her. She puts her feet on the couch, pulls her knees to her chest. “I can’t believe she’s gone…”

 

Tony rises from his seat and kneels in front of Eliska. “We’ll figure out what happened, Elie.” He pulls a card out of his jacket and scribbles something on the back with a pen. “My personal number’s on the back. Call me or come by the tower if you need anything. Anything at all, Elie.”

 

With a shaking hand, Eliska grabs the card.

 

*

 

 

Clint and Natasha drive back to the tower. Once outside, Tony had taken off in the suit, muttering about getting to the workshop to review Damienne’s data.

 

“Stark seems better,” Natasha says, eyeing him for a second before glancing back at the road. “Both of you do.”

 

He shrugs, stares out at ruined buildings and makeshift memorials for the dead.

 

Clint doesn’t feel better, not really. But he doesn’t feel worse either.

 

“We have a mission, now,” he says. “Had to postpone our pity party.”

 

A red light catches them.

 

From his peripheral he can see Natasha frown, notices the way she bites the inside of her cheek.

 

“Maybe you were right.”

 

Surprised, he turns to her. “About what?”

 

The grip she has on the steering wheel tightens. “Going away for a while. Taking some time for yourself, away from all of this.”

 

He laughs. “Seriously? After telling me it was the worst thing I could do?”

 

“I never said—”

 

“Bullshit, Nat. You didn’t have to say it. What? You think I can’t handle this?”

 

“You need a break, Clint.”

 

She turns to him and Clint can feel an edge of panic creeping in. His heart beats faster, a crazed tattoo against his chest and he wonders if she’ll talk Fury into pulling him out of the mission. Clint knows he’s been unstable these past several weeks, knows that not long ago the thought of leaving all this behind let him breathe easily. But now the same thought makes him panic. What would he do with himself, besides lie in bed? What purpose would he have, then? How would he atone? Make up for his mistakes, for all the blood on his hands? How would he even begin to balance his ledger after all the added red?

 

“Clint!”

 

A car behind them honks and Clint sucks in a breath, startled. When he looks up, the light is green and Natasha is glancing at him, concern lining her face.

 

Natasha drives, but her hand on the gearshift tightens its hold.

 

“I’m fine,” he says, before pulling out the phone Tony gave him several days ago.

 

He sends a quick text and steels himself for a tense, quiet drive. But when he looks out the window once more, he notices they have passed the turn for the tower.

 

“Nat, where are we going?”

 

“I found something,” she says.

 

But before he can ask, they pull over in a parking lot behind a row of consignment shops and boutiques. He follows Natasha out of the car and up six blocks where they find a subway station and make their way down. The silence of their ride worries him. The feeling increases once he realizes where they are headed.

 

After twenty minutes, they get off at the Franklin Street exit and Clint thinks he knows their destination. Once on the street, they make a left, crossing an intersection. Natasha leads him to a gray nondescript apartment building.

 

"Wouldn't have thought you'd kept the place," he says as Natasha unlocks the front door.

 

"Technically, it was never compromised."

 

Clint huffs.

 

They trudge up five flights of stairs and walk down a dark lit hallway. At the last door on the left, Natasha stops, pulling out a small golden key. Slowly, she unlocks the door and pushes it a few inches open.

 

They both glance down at the untouched, thin piece of string hanging in between the open space of the doorframe and door at ankle level. Satisfied, Natasha pushes the door open the rest of the way.

 

The apartment is barren. Evening light streams through grime layered windows, casting shadows across the dark wooden floorboards. A few sparse pieces of furniture stand in the living room: a worn down couch, a small coffee table, a stand-up lamp, and an old TV.

 

Clint runs his fingers down a familiar crack on the wall, a result of Natasha throwing him against it years ago. It had been a few months before Budapest, at a time he had been chasing her all over the globe trying to get her to stop and listen for once.

 

Phantom pain pulses against his head. He runs his fingers through the hair at the back of his head trying to dispel the memory. It had been quite the concussion.

 

Natasha walks to the small kitchen, opens the cupboard beneath the sink, and pulls out a bucket and paint roller.

 

"There's wallpaper in the bedroom closet," she says, flicking open a pocketknife.

 

The bedroom is the same as the living room, bare, with only a naked mattress on the floor and a lamp beside it. He takes out the roll of wallpaper from the closet, notices it matches the one in the living room, and hefts it onto his shoulder before going back to the living room.

 

“You gonna tell me what you found?”

 

Natasha has pushed the coffee table against the far north wall, between the windows facing the street. She’s standing atop it, stretching upward, with her knife pressed against the space where the wall meets the ceiling.

 

She brings the knife down and the wallpaper droops like a flower’s heavy petal, revealing a stretch of wooden panels beneath. Hands touching along the wall, she searches for a loose panel. The motions are as familiar today as they were years ago, when Clint sat on the couch, bloodied, holding a bag of ice to his aching head. Now, Clint watches as she presses on a wooden panel he knows is loose. Using the tip of her knife, Natasha opens the panel, revealing a small crevice. She reaches in and pulls something out.

 

She jumps down and walks over to him. “The unknown Raza was dealing with, they were Red Room.”

 

“That’s not possible. We made sure of that.”

 

Natasha shakes her head. “My contact in Russia sent me a confirmed visual ID. And there’s been rumors.”

 

“What kind of rumors?”

 

“The American is back.”

 

Clint resists the urge to pace. “That doesn’t mean anything. There’s been rumors of his sightings for decades and all those trails we followed led nowhere. Man’s probably been dead for years, there’s been no concrete sign of him. Now, he’s just some ghost story told to every merc and terrorist to scare them, make them cautious, make them think twice of who they’re doing business with.”

 

“He’s not dead.”

 

She opens her hand to reveal a USB drive.

 

“We need to give this to Stark. It contains all the Red Room files from every base we destroyed. I kept them along with multiple copies. We never found the sleepers, Clint. It’s him. It has to be. Someone’s using him again.”

 

“Great, this just got way more complicated than we needed it to be.” He picks up the paint roller. “Lets get this over with, then.”

 

They spend the next twenty minutes removing the rest of the wallpaper in the living room. Natasha mixes the paste they need, while Clint measures the walls. The next several hours are spent re-wallpapering the living room.

 

“Man, this place is such high maintenance,” he says when they finish covering the last wall. Parts of his arms are covered in paste, with every move the hairs on his arm pull against the paste. “You should reconsider getting rid of this place, Nat. Seems more trouble than it’s worth.”

 

Natasha’s lips thin, but Clint know she’s fighting a smile. “If you no longer want this place anymore, _yastreb,_ all you have to do is say so.”

 

Clint is about to say something snappy back when her words catch up to him. Natasha saying he has any say on whether or not this safe house remains in house implies co-ownership. It hits him then, why she said the safe house wasn’t technically compromised because now it’s his safe house, too. Probably has been since he broke in and Natasha smashed him into the wall hard enough to see stars.

 

Despite himself, he smiles.

 

*

 

 

When Clint and Natasha return to the tower, it’s to find everyone—save Tony—gathered in the common room. The TV is on, a loud movie Clint doesn’t recognize, but the others don’t seem to be paying it any attention. Clint clears his throat and when they all turn to him, he can see the worry on their faces.

“He got back and went straight into the workshop. Hasn’t been out since and he’s not allowing anyone entry. What happened?” Steve asks, rising from his seat on the couch.

 

JARVIS pauses the movie.

 

“He knew her better than he let on,” Clint says.

 

“He needs to get up here. We may have a lead,” Natasha says. “JARVIS?”

 

“I have alerted, Sir. He shall meet you in five minutes.”

 

When Tony walks in he looks too tired for three in the afternoon. Clint can tell he’s been drinking, but considering Clint sleeps with a gun beneath his pillow, he’s not one to judge.

 

Tony turns towards Clint and Natasha. “Took you guys long enough to get here. Did the Spy Kids get lunch or something? Because if you did and you didn’t bring any back for the rest of us, I will be sorely disappointed in you. I mean really, I put a roof over your heads, give you 100% Egyptian cotton sheets, the least you could do is bring back—”

 

“Tony,” Clint says.

 

“—I mean seriously—”

 

“Stark,” Natasha says and hits him upside the head.

 

“Ow, _Jesus_ , come on.”

 

“Sit. We think we have a lead,” Natasha says.

 

Her hands are fisted, her knuckles tight. In his mind’s eye he sees crescent moon outlines on her palms.

 

“Any of you heard of the Winter Soldier?” he asks.

 

“Wait,” Tony says, “you mean ‘The American’?”

 

Clint leans forward, staring at Tony. “That’s the one. How did you—”

 

Tony shrugs, pulling a tablet onto his lap. “Hacked the CIA when I was thirteen. You’d be surprised at their paranoia, the stories in those files…I swear some read like fiction.”

 

Bruce clears his throat. “Ah, who exactly is this?”

 

“He’s a ghost story,” Clint says, “or he started out that way.”

 

“After World War II,” Natasha says, “the Soviet Union made intelligence gathering, both domestic and international, one of its primary objectives. With the establishment of the KGB in 1954 came experimentation. Contrary to popular belief they didn’t want perfect soldiers. The Red Army defeated Hitler, the Union no longer had to prove its military strength. What they wanted were sleepers, infiltrators. They wanted empty people they could fill what whatever they wanted, mold them however they wanted. So they experimented.

 

“Department X was established and, years later, rumors about a man, a former American soldier, start popping up. No one knows what he looks like, who he is, or where he comes from. Just that he’s ruthless, efficient; a killer so cold it’s said he must be part machine. It’s rumored he’s never failed a mission, never misses his target.”

 

“Intelligence agencies don’t think he exists. Every time an investigation’s been opened,” Clint shrugs, glances at Natasha, “it always led to dead ends. Besides the rumors, there was—is—no trail of him.”

 

“How does a Cold War super secret spy agent have anything to do with Damie’s death?” Tony asks.

 

“He’s back,” Natasha says.

 

“Wait.” Bruce holds up a hand. “You’re saying this man is still alive? That’s impossible. You said this started after World War II, he should be dead by now or in his late 70’s at least.”

 

“Aye,” Thor says. “Mortal lives are shorter than the Aesirs’. Unless this man has eaten the apples of Idun, he must surely be dead.”

 

“Ignoring Thor’s comment about possible immortality,” Tony says, “please don’t tell me we’re taking out geriatric criminals now. I’m pretty sure the NYPD can handle an old man.”

 

Clint shrugs. He doesn’t know if the American is an old man or if he even _is_ a man.

 

Natasha shakes her head. “I doubt he’s much older than me, Clint, or Steve.”

 

“How is that possible?” Bruce breathes.

 

Natasha stares, unseeing.

 

Despite how long Clint has known Natasha, their relationship is still littered with a land mine of secrets, both hers and his. He’s never known the full extent of what the Red Room had done to her, but he had his suspicions.

 

“He gets frozen. In between missions, he’s frozen, put in some sort of stasis. Whenever the Department needed him again, they would thaw him out, and give him a mission. Sometimes, his mission was to become someone else. To make it foolproof, X scientists figured out a way to manipulate human memory. They could take someone and strip their life, their identity away. They made people empty vessels, filled them with whatever they wanted, made them whatever, whoever.” Natasha smiles. It is crooked and wrong and unbearably honest. “I thought I was a ballerina once.”

 

Bruce, Tony, Thor, and Steve’s eyes snap to her. There is pity and curiosity and a solemn look from Thor that has Clint wondering.

 

“Natasha,” Steve starts, “you don’t have to—”

 

“To train these special agents, Department X established the Red Room. The unknown Raza was meeting with was a former Red Room operative.”

 

“Was? Did they he break ties with them, then?” Tony asks.

 

Clint steps forward. “Before joining SHIELD, Natasha and I destroyed the Red Room. Eliminated all their bases.” He meets Tony’s eyes. “The last one was in Budapest and we burned it to the ground.”

 

“Seems like they’re back now,” Steve says.

 

“We can’t be sure,” Natasha says. “Department X itself was a vast network. It’s unclear how many side branches there were. Some things were never recorded, numerous branch departments were off the books. It’s rumored that the end of a branch’s usefulness, all employees were killed, their identities systematically erased. In the end, it was as if they never existed. None of us did, not really.”

 

Clint can hear the tension underlying her words. Budapest had been a war. By the time Natasha and he had left, the surrounding area was leveled, decimated, as if someone had attempted to blow it off the map. He remembers the way Natasha had stood, bloodied, bruised, leaning heavily on her left because her right ankle was sprained. He remembers the way she smiled and emptied her gun clip into Rodchenko’s face.

 

But then he remembers the weeks that came after, the entire days she would grow quiet, as if the very act of speaking were too much. 

 

“Tony,” Natasha says, reaching out her hand, “this contains Red Room files from several years ago. I copied everything I could. They could be a lead or a dead end.”

 

Tony watches Natasha for a moment before accepting the drive. “I’ll go through these tonight, see what I can find. I’’ll compile everything known about the American, too. Cross-reference these files with the CIA, Interpol, MI-6, Mossad, and the rest of the major alphabets in the soup.”

 

“I’ll help,” Clint says.

 

Tony nods absentmindedly in his direction, already typing on his table.

 

“And what of the young maiden? Is the cause of her abduction known?” Thor asks.

 

In all the panic and surprise about the Winter Soldier, Clint had forgotten about Damienne’s abduction. He looks over at Tony, remembering the way he had said “Hi Elie” earlier today. 

 

Tony stops typing. He shakes his head, gripping the tablet tight, hugging it to his chest. “No. Besides using her to get to me we don’t really know why she was taken.”

 

“You haven’t found anything in her systems?” Natasha asks.

 

“No, but I haven’t finished looking either.”

 

Thor’s eyes are solemn. “I am sorry, Anthony. The loss of a friend is a difficult burden to bear.”

 

Clint feels a stab of anger at Thor’s words. He wants to say that Damienne’s death ins’t Tony’s burden because he didn’t cause it, though he knows the idiot genius has convinced himself of his fault.

 

Thor stands and walks over to Tony, his eyes solemn. He clasps Tony on the shoulder, causing Tony to jolt. “We are here for you, Anthony. I have lost many a friend in battle. I find the company of your Shield Brothers, alongside a barrel of mead, to be of great help.”

 

Tony grins. “Thanks, big guy. Though, I think I’ll skip right to the barrel of alcohol. Was never much for company.”

 

Clint glares at Tony, thinking of the trouble he went through to sneak into the lab and keep a drunk Tony from dying of dehydration. When Tony glances his way, however, all he does is laugh.

 

“Sheesh, I’m kidding, Legolas. I’m aware we have work to do requiring our mutual sobriety. Besides, JARVIS and the bots conspired. The lab is, sadly, clear of alcohol.”

 

Clint spots a camera a little ways off on the ceiling. He tips his head in its direction, hoping JARVIS understands the message: Tony’s been drinking enough.

 

*

 

He’s in the kitchen preparing green tea when Steve approaches him.

 

As he searches the pantry for honey, he hears soft, hesitant foot falls on the tiled floor. He doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s Steve. Pushing aside a few cans of beans, he finds an unlabeled jar with what appears to be honey inside. Shrugging, he grabs it and pulls the pantry door shut. Still, he doesn’t turn to face Steve who, in his mind’s eye, is shuffling from foot to foot.

 

Clint pours his tea and adds the honey. He takes a sip, familiar comfort heating his throat. When he turns, Steve is watching him, mouth downturned, a guilty look in his shifting eyes.

 

For a moment, neither speaks. Clint sipping his tea and Steve observing, trying to puzzle something out.

 

“I read the files. All of them,” Steve says and Clint knows this means he’s read the paper files Fury has tucked away in his office.

 

Clint nods.

 

“I read yours too, you know. And Natasha’s.”

 

Clint smiles, crooked.

 

“Does Tony know? About you and Natasha, about—”

 

“About our _terms_ of employment?”

 

Steve massages the back of his neck with a hand. “Look, forget it, this isn’t any of my business, I’m just going to—yeah.”

 

Before he can walk away, Clint snorts into his tea mug. “It’s fine, Steve. Trust me.”

 

He finishes his tea and places the mug in the sink. When he glances at Steve he sees the man staring back, his blue eyes focused and intent.

 

“All those things in your file,” he says without looking away, “did you really do them? You and Natasha?”

 

Clint takes a breath. “Yeah,” he nods, “And a slew of others SHIELD still doesn’t know about.”

 

“Clint, I need to know I can trust everyone on this team.”

 

Steve’s words remind Clint of Phil, of the first time he met the man in a broken down motel room, in the middle of Austria, Clint’s blood soaking into the bed sheets. Phil hadn’t trusted him in the beginning, had no reason to, really. But months later, when Natasha got on SHIELD’s radar and he was assigned to take her out, Phil trusted him to come back. Clint had gone off mission not even five minutes in, with nothing more than a “Trust me, Boss.” It still surprises Clint, the trust Phil had for him.

 

Clint leans back against the counter. He thinks of Natasha cooking the team breakfast, of her sending him to check on Tony just a few days ago. He thinks of her outstretched hand, holding a USB drive with her history encrypted within, and saying, “We need to give this to Stark.”

 

He meets Steve’s steely blue eyes. “Natasha and I are loyal to this team, Steve.”

 

Steve nods and there is relief in his eyes. He takes a step back, as if to leave, but then stops. “Is Tony…” He says and trails off.

 

It takes Clint a moment to realize what he’s trying to ask. But when he does, he’s quick to say, “He’s fine, Steve.” He gives Steve a crooked grin, “Just don’t mention Howard or Maria. And take Natasha’s assessment with a grain of salt.”

 

Steve laughs, says he will, and walks out, leaving Clint alone in the dimly lit kitchen. Picking up the jar of honey, Clint notices an inscription on the lid: _Hal’s Local Honey._

 

*

 

Clint steps out of the elevator, carefully balancing a plate of sandwiches and two mugs. The workshop’s glass walls are clear. He can see Dum-E whirring around, picking up tools left and right. He can’t see Tony.

 

Clint eyes the touch pad next to the doors. “JARVIS?”

 

The doors open and music spills out. Clint recognizes Nirvana’s cover of Lead Belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.”

 

Walking around a pile of circuitry and past the work bench, Clint catches sight of Tony. He is standing in an array of holographic monitors, streams of code scrolling down each one, spinning a pen in one hand. There are several empty mugs scattered around.

 

“I’m assuming you haven’t eaten since yesterday,” Clint says.

 

“Jesus!” Tony jumps, dropping the pen. Whirling around he says, “What the hell, Clint. You and Romanoff. Bells. I mean it. Big, noisy, cow bells—” he points at Clint—“just you wait.”

 

Laughing, Clint settles the plate down and offers Tony one of the mugs. Without turning away from the monitors, Tony takes a sip, only to sputter and cough.

 

“The fuck is this, Barton?”

 

Clint grins, taking a sip of his own drink. “It’s called tea, moron.” He eyes the empty mugs standing on various surfaces of the workshop. “You’ve had enough caffeine, Tony, don’t you think.”

 

As usual, Tony dismisses him away with a wave of the hand. “No such thing.”

 

Still, he sips the tea again, this time with no complaint.

 

“Eat, Tony. Whatever you’re doing can wait.” Clint hands him a sandwich. “Here, have a sandwich.”

 

Clint is surprised when Tony turns away from the monitors, grabs the sandwich, and bites into it with no complaint about how he has more useful things to do than eat. Pleased, Clint pulls up a chair, perches his feet on the nearest surface, and leans back to eat his sandwich and finish his tea.

 

“How did you get in here, anyway?” 

 

“JARVIS opened the door.”

 

After a moment of silence, he looks up to see Tony eyeing him, head cocked to the side like a curious dog.

 

“What?” Clint asks. 

 

Tony shakes his head. “Nothing.”

 

Clint shrugs. “You find anything yet?”

 

“No.” Tony’s shoulders slump.

 

“They took her because of her connection to you then. Somehow, this is personal. I’d ask who you’ve pissed off recently, but somehow I think that list would be too long to work through.”

 

Tony huffs. “Could say the same about you.”

 

“Yeah,” Clint says, remembering his days before SHIELD, “I guess you could.”

 

He puts his empty tea mug on the desk and reaches over, pulling down one of Tony’s holo-screens.

 

“So, this American,” Tony starts, “you ever seen him before?”

 

Clint looks up at Tony, eyes catching on the way his fingers beat a tattoo against his mug.

 

“No,” he says. “Heard the stories for years, though. Ever since I became a merc. They used to say he was an American soldier who fought in the Vietnam War.” He shrugs. “That he was a deserter, a man with no allegiance, no loyalties tying him to anything, anyone, or anywhere.”

 

“Let me guess, except money,” Tony says.

 

“Hell if anybody knew. Somebody would spot him and then no one would hear or see anything for weeks, months, years.”

 

“Why call him the Winter Soldier?”

 

“Story is he used to only appear in the winter, on the coldest day of the season. They used to say the coldest Russian winter couldn’t keep him from his target.”

 

“I started on the Red Room files.” Tony grabs one of his tablets. “Everything’s there. Pretty sure Bruce and I could build our own stasis chamber.”

 

“Don’t think that’s a good idea, Tony,” Clint says.

 

Tony moves around the workshop. Grabbing mugs, only to find them empty, then setting them down again. “Did you know there was more than one Black Widow?”

 

“Yeah, I knew.”

 

Clint closes his eyes. Behind his closed lids he can see Natasha, younger and drenched in red as if someone had taken a can of red paint and dumped it on her head. 

 

“You know there was no mention of the Red Room in the mission report from Budapest?” Tony asks.

 

Clint opens his eyes and nods. Tony is sitting atop the workbench, tablet in hand, gadgets, wires, and papers everywhere.

 

“It was redacted. Phil, Fury, and Hill agreed. The Red Room was a ghost story at best at the time, too. No one ever really believed in the whispers. Not until Natasha left the fold and decided to take them down. We changed the details—”

 

“Made it seem like she was supposed to be your target, but then you changed your mind and brought her in,” Tony says.

 

Clint nods. “Twisted version of how we met.”

 

“The KGB was one of the world’s largest spy networks. You know what the CIA have next to the agency’s mission and assassination counts? Unknown.” Tony shakes his head. “Suppose, you gotta admire their ability in secrecy.”

 

They’re silent for a while. Clint checks the news, a compulsion he’s never been able to shake since his days as a merc. It was an advantage, learning the happenings of the world.

 

“How did you two meet? You and Natasha.” Tony asks.

 

“After she left the Red Room, she started taking contract jobs. Someone hired her to kill me.” Clint reaches for his mug, then remembers he finished his tea. “I managed to change her mind.”

 

“How?”

 

“Red Room whispers were louder if you were in contract work. I figured out who she was and offered her something she wanted more than money.”

 

“And that was?”

 

“To take out the Red Room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've put myself on a (somewhat) writing schedule, so updates should no longer be taking six months lol I already have some idea of what I want to happen next chapter. I'd love to know your thoughts! So if you're willing to share 'em, drop a comment below :) Promise you'll make my day.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "People like me weren't meant for peace. It's not in our blood, not in our DNA. It unsettles us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be up way earlier than this. But a series of school projects, hard drive death, and laptop issues prevented it. But everything is good now :) Hope you all enjoy. 
> 
> Beta'd by Cheerfuldisposition. Thank you, my dear. You are magnificent. 
> 
> ***Trigger warning: Very brief mention of 9/11. Like one sentence. It's near the end of Clint and Tony's initial scene, after the paragraph that starts "The New York skyline…" ***

Steve can’t sleep. There’s a restlessness in his bones that has him wandering the tower floors, taking the stairs instead of the elevator because he can’t stomach the feeling of falling, no matter how brief it may be. Not tonight, when nightmares crept into his bed and embraced him with their shadows.

 

It’s 4am and he’s been awake for an hour. Though his heart has since stopped its rapid tattoo beat against his chest, he can still remember its hammering when he shot up awake in his bed. Usually, he wakes up shivering, tugging blankets around himself in a vain struggle to feel some semblance of warmth. Most nights, he dreams of being consumed by ice, of being frozen alive.

 

But not this night.

 

This night he dreamt of a scream echoing off rocky mountain walls, the echo growing, spreading with the wind.

 

It happens some days.

 

Some days, someone will laugh and it will turn into a screech and the screech will turn into an echoing scream. And Steve will hear a rushing in his ears, like wild wind whipping all around, a shiver traveling down his spine. Steve has had nightmares most of his life. When he was younger, he oftentimes dreamed of dying, of hacking up blood, and falling down dead. When the nation went to war and he enlisted, Steve dreamed in shades of wildfire orange and the shouts of rifles. Now, he dreams about the ice and a never ending scream.

 

He would give anything for the screaming to stop.

 

Steve walks into the common’s kitchen without turning on the lights, he doesn’t need to—not with the serum running through his veins. He opens the fridge, letting the light spill out onto his feet, and reaches for the milk carton.

 

“Nightmares again, Rogers?”

 

Steve’s head knocks against the inside of the fridge before he registers the voice. Stepping away from the fridge, rubbing the sore spot on his head, Steve scans the kitchen’s depths. He notices her silhouette amidst the shadows and the play of New York City light streaming in from the windows. The light brushes the edges of her feet, leaving the rest of her in darkness.

 

Natasha is sitting at the kitchen table and Steve wonders how long she has sat there.

 

Recalling her question, he says, “Couldn’t sleep.” He glances back at the stove’s clock glowing numbers. “I figure it’s too early for a run.”

 

Natasha hums in acknowledgement.

 

Steve busies himself in the kitchen, pulling out the milk and the _Life_ cinnamon cereal Tony likes to keep stocked in the pantry, even though the man doesn’t prefer it.

 

“Clint told me you read our files.” Natasha says.

 

“I did.”

 

Steve turns to Natasha. He can see her better now. She has stepped out of her shadow’s secret embrace, allowed the light to hit her eyes. Her hair is tied up in a loose bun and she is wearing a t-shirt with a stretched out collar that falls over a shoulder and a pair of loose fitting sweatpants. Steve has never seen her look so normal, so average. No one can see her dangerousness like this, he thinks, not unless you stared into her eyes.

 

“You shouldn’t trust us,” she says, walking towards the living room, shaking Steve outside his thoughts.

 

Steve abandons his cereal and moves to join her by the glass wall looking out towards the city. It hasn’t ceased to amaze him, all the lights shining in the night. The city has grown since the 40’s, expanded in every direction. There are still new streets and blocks Steve has yet to set foot on. The thought still unsettles him.

 

“If this is about Department X,” he begins, “and what the Red Room did—”

 

“It’s not.”

 

Steve turns to her, confused. Natasha’s face is half shadowed, stray locks of hair falling about her face.

 

“Clint and I are survivors, Cap.” She meets his eyes and in them he can see a blank neutrality that unsettles him, has the hair at the back of his neck standing at attention. This is the Black Widow, Steve thinks. Staring off into the city lights, she continues with a shake of her head, “At the end of the day, we survive. Whatever the cost.”

 

Minutes pass in silence.

 

Steve thinks of all the soldiers who will never make it back home, imagines their family and friends grieving their deaths, struggling to accept the heavy knowledge their father/mother/brother/sister/son/daughter/friend will never come back. In his mind, he sees Peggy in the interview video from the Smithsonian, the crooked, broken smile she gave when the interviewer asked about Steve. He thinks of his own grief, of how he’ll walk down Brooklyn streets and remember the time Bucky walked alongside him. That space is hollow now, empty, taken over by a ghost of Steve’s own creation. Bucky will never see this, he thinks, this new New York laid at his feet. He will never gaze upon the city lights, will never explore the new streets.

 

“Then I’ll trust in that,” he says, and this time it’s Natasha’s turn to look at him with guarded bewilderment. “I’ll trust you to survive, even if the rest of us don’t.” He meets her eyes. “Especially if the rest of us don’t.”

 

Natasha stares and, after a moment, nods.

 

“You’re not what I expected, Rogers,” she says, looking out at the city once more.

 

“Yeah,” he says, following her gaze, his thoughts drifting to Erskine. “I’m starting to think I’m not what anyone expected.”

 

Natasha shrugs. “Most people aren’t.”

 

*

 

Clint dreams of Phil again.

 

In his dream he is laying on the ground with Phil standing over him, clothed in one of his standard suits. There is blood seeping from the hole in his chest. There’s a gun in his hand and he’s pointing it at Clint.

 

“You killed me,” Phil says, his eyes sweeping over Clint. “You killed us.”

 

Clint looks past Phil to find every agent who died in the SHIELD attack. The attack he planned and carried out.

 

“It hurt, Clint,” Phil breathes, clicking off the gun’s safety. “When you let Loki put his spear through my chest. When you shot your arrows at them. It hurt.”

 

Clint shakes his head. He remembers—knows in the very marrow of his bones—his arrows never met flesh. Not the flesh of a SHIELD agent. “I—I didn’t,” he struggles to say. There’s a weight on his chest, an unbearable pressure restricting the breath of his lungs. His chest burns with each inhale.

 

“No?” Phil leans down, looks Clint over. “Well what about your explosions, huh?” He jerks his head over his shoulder. “They look well to you, Clint?”

 

Clint looks over Phil’s shoulder and sees the crowd gathered there, the bloody clothes, the half blown off faces. It isn’t just the SHIELD agents in the crowd anymore, though, it’s everyone he’s ever killed—everyone whose met the tips of his arrows and found themselves in the middle of his crosshairs. Their faces hover above him like avenging ghosts.

 

They grin down at him, their mouths bloody with missing teeth.

 

Cool metal presses against his cheek. It’s Phil, caressing him with his gun.

 

“You know, I don’t even have to shoot you,” Phil murmurs. “All I have to do is wait and see.”

 

The ghosts around him start to laugh, a loud, deafening cackle.

 

Phil holds his hand lightly over Clint’s chest. He finally notices it, finally feels it, when he looks down at himself. The pool of red around him, the gaping hole in his chest, the size of a fist. Clint’s breath stutters and he starts to breathe quicker, but that only makes the ache worse, makes his lungs tighten and burn.

 

The ghosts start to speak then, some shouting, some whispering. But it’s all the same: _Clint, Clint, Cliiiint._

 

Phil pushes his hand into the hole in his chest and Clint screams.

 

The voices rise, shouting his name like a sacrificial mantra.

 

_Clint, Clint, Clint, Clint…_

 

The ground beneath him rumbles with their chant.

 

He can feel it now, the warmth seeping out of him, the burning pain. He can feel Phil’s fingers, playing with his innards, can see the blood smeared all the way up his wrist, a vibrant red against pale ghost skin. The air tightens around him, makes him want to curl into himself, but he can’t move, not with Phil’s hand pinning down. After a while, he starts to choke. 

 

“CLINT.”

 

Clint shoots up awake, grabs the out stretched hand in his field of vision, and twists the whole arm. Heaving to the side, he brings them both to the ground, manages to land on top. He pulls their hand behind their back, holding them down with a well placed knee.

 

“—Jesus fuck, this is the last time I wake your ass up, Barton.”

 

On instinct, Clint twists the hand further, presses his knee down deeper. He wonders how this person managed to break into the Tower, how they got so close. Where was Natasha?

 

“Fuck, Clint, it’s me, it’s Tony—motherfuck _._ You fell asleep in the lab, you dipshit. Fucking, spies and their ridiculous reflexes _._ Swear to god— _”_

 

Clint blinks awake. “Tony?” He glances around the room, notices the familiar surroundings, then he looks down. “Shit.”

 

He releases his grip on Tony as if electrocuted, pushes himself up to his feet, and puts a five foot distance between them. There’s an overturned chair and a shattered mug laying on the floor. Shame prickles up Clint’s neck, settling with an uncomfortable warmth.

 

“Shit—I’m sorry.” Clint says, running a hand over his face. His heart is beating too fast and too hard. His hands are trembling. He clenches them together in an attempt to keep Tony from noticing. 

 

“It’s okay,” Tony says, pushing himself up from the floor. Rubbing his shoulder, he says, “I shouldn’t have shaken you awake like that. I know better”—he motions towards Clint—“I just didn’t think you’d—”

 

“Tackle you to the floor and pin you?” Clint says. He moves to take a step toward Tony, but stops midway. “You all right?”

 

Tony looks at Clint and gives him a soft look. “I’m fine. Just a sore shoulder.” He eyes the distance between them. “You don’t have to stand all the way over there.”

 

“Tony, I—”

 

“You’re forgiven, Clint, though really there’s nothing to forgive.” He shrugs, then grimaces, rubbing his shoulder again. “Like I said—I should’ve known better. I’m sorry I woke you like that.”

 

“No, it’s…” But Clint doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.  He wants to say, _I could have killed you,_ but the words won’t come. This isn’t the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. It’s just that Natasha is usually the one to wake him, the one he tries to wrestle. She’s the only who one who wins, too.

 

Walking towards Clint, Tony asks, “Bad dream?”

 

He looks at the floor, clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah, just—”

 

“Clint, it’s fine. You don’t have to talk about it with me. Trust me, I’m no stranger to attacking someone when—” Tony makes an expanse gesture toward Clint—“you know.”

 

Clint doesn’t know what to say, so he nods.

 

“Good,” Tony says with a grin, “because I found something.”

 

Clint’s head snaps up. “What?”

 

Tony shuffles from foot to foot and the childlike gesture ratchets up the anxiety that’s been pooling in Clint’s belly since he woke up.

 

“Think I found a video of Damie’s kidnapping,” he says, reaching towards a monitor. “But it’s not exactly what you’d call a good image, if one at all, really.”

 

Clint strides towards Tony. “Show me.”

 

Tony presses play.

 

There is a view of a street. Clint recognizes it as the one facing Damienne’s apartment. The camera is stationary, facing the sidewalk and street of what Clint assumes is one of the small shops. The time stamp reads 7:45 AM. There is no sound.

 

Two minutes in, a few people pass by, mostly runners out for a morning jog. At the three minute mark a car parks off to the left side of the camera. Only the front hood is visible. Clint watches and sees a human shaped shadow exit the driver’s side of car.

 

Seconds later, there’s an off-screen struggle. Clint focuses on the lower left corner of the screen where multiple human shadows are intertwined, shifting every once in a while. From the number of flailing arms, he guesses there were two people in the car. The third must be Damienne. He thinks he sees the shadow of a knife.

 

The struggle is over in less than a minute.

 

By 7:49, the car is gone.

 

Professional, Clint thinks. He and Natasha couldn’t have done it any better.

 

“You saw that, right? Tell me you saw that,” Tony says. “In less than five minutes, they were gone.”

 

“We’re sure this was Damienne?”

 

Tony, who was pacing, now faces Clint.

 

“I asked Elie about Damie’s work route. The time matches. And, come on, what would be the odds of there being another kidnapping on the day Damie goes missing? Right in front of her apartment? Coincidence? Yeah, I don’t think so. Why does everyone always doubt me?” Tony pauses, mutters, “I’m getting off track here.” He points to the paused video. “This is her, Clint. Someone took her, to get to me, and we didn’t even know about it until we found her body.” Tony laughs, then. “Wow. Not even three months on the job and already we’re failing at this superhero gig.” He shakes his head and swipes his eyes. “We’re gonna get horrible _Yelp_ reviews. Steve will be so disappointed.”

 

“Tony,” Clint says, and puts a hand on his shoulder. He squeezes. “We’re going to get them.”

 

“How?” Tony asks. “We don’t even know who ‘they’ are, Clint.”

 

This close, Clint can see the warm brown Tony’s eyes are. There’s an intensity in them that mesmerizes Clint, that reminds him this is a man who escaped a desert cave, brushed away the ashes, and reinvented himself.  

 

Leaning in, Clint says, “We’ll find them. And we’ll figure this out.”

 

Tony stares at Clint, his eyes somber. “You can’t promise me that. New York is still rebuilding.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think we can handle another hit—not anytime soon—and come out on top.”

 

Clint won’t tell Tony that he is wrong, because he is not.

 

The New York skyline will never be the same, not after the Chitauri attack. Memorials can still be found around every street corner, pictures of dead loved ones illuminated in candlelight. Hot candle filled in the battle cracks as if it could fix the broken parts of the city, holding them together like glue. But even so, the streets were teeming with people. The hard sounds of reconstruction could be heard full well throughout the day, construction workers and volunteers alike working alongside each other. Even the Mayor had been spotted a number of times, a hard hat on his head, dirty white dress sleeves rolled up.

 

Just like after the tragedy of 9/11, the city banded together.

 

They only had to remain together for a while longer.

 

 

*

 

Damie was Elie's fifth girlfriend and seventh partner (there were two men before her). She was brilliant and beautiful. Somehow, the sun always managed to shine on her, making her eyes brighter and her skin golden. Elie always thought this hilarious, one of the great ironies of life, because Damie spent most of her time in her apartment coding with the shades drawn. Still, she was the brightest person in Elie's life.

 

They met when Elie was six and new at school. Elie hadn’t lived with her parents; they had died when she was four. A plane crash. So it goes.

 

Instead, she lived with her grandmother, who was loving, patient, and caring. Yet, Elie spent most of her nights—and many a day—alone. Back then her grandmother had been a busy woman, the office manager of a small start up charity that required her constant care and supervision, often resulting in fifty hour work weeks or more.

 

But Damie was there on her first day of school. She sat beside Elie in class, leaned over, eyes round and bright as the sun, and said, “Wanna hear a secret?”And when Elie had timidly nodded, she said. “Some days I wish I weren’t myself.”

 

Back then, Elie had giggled. Back then, Damie had been a strange girl, with strange quirks. It wasn’t until they grew older that Elie began to understand. Damie was like the puff of a first morning cigarette, wonderful, invigorating, yet brief and ephemeral. Damie liked puzzles so much she made herself into one. For half of middle school, all of high school, and part of college, Elie had seen Damie as a schizophrenic amalgamation of everyone and no one. She had even made it into a game in middle school. She would pick a busy spot in campus, find a place to sit, and watch.

 

She’d watch and then she’d borrow.

 

She’d borrow hand gestures, picking them up and discarding them with the flick of her wrist. She’d borrow handwriting fonts and fashion styles; she’d watch the way people sat, find which one she liked best, and mirrored it. Elie had watched her try on person suit after person suit, until she created a patchwork version of her own.

 

She had been Elie's first—and, for a while, only—friend. Even if Elie had spent most of their friendship and part of their relationship trying to puzzle her out.

 

When Damie was officially declared missing, Elie had felt lost, hollow, like someone had gutted her from the inside out without raising a hand, without leaving a mark, turning off the lights on their way out. She took a week off of work and wandered. After packing her car, she left the state behind and visited their old haunts. She went to their childhood hometown, visited friends she hadn’t see nor thought of in years. She went to their college town and tracked down one of Damie’s old girlfriends only to learn she hadn’t seen her in almost a year. In a fit of desperation, Elie called hospitals, police departments, and morgues. She saw three Jane Does who matched Damie’s description only to feel a short sick breath of relief when she realized they weren’t her.

 

Weeks later, when Tony knocked on her door and said it was about Damie, something inside Elie knew. Her gut had churned and her eyes had burned with tears, but through her grief, deep down in a place her grandmother had always told her to acknowledge, she had felt it.

 

Relief.

 

She could stop looking, stop hoping, press play, and start picking up the hollow pieces of her life. After Tony and his friends left, Elie had let herself cry for an hour. Then she wiped her eyes, took a shower, made a cup of tea, opened all the windows of her apartment, picked up the phone, and dialed her lawyer. Elie was Damie’s beneficiary, just like Damie had been Elie's.

 

Now, hours later, in the middle of the night, Elie finds herself in Damie’s apartment.

 

The quiet is haunting.

 

Even when Elie had been in the apartment while Damie was out getting them breakfast in the mornings, the place had never been this quiet. There had always been the hum of machines and soft music playing from the stereo Damie never turned off, no matter how many times Elie told her she was wasting electricity and contributing to global warming. She remembers the way Damie would just roll her eyes and say, “Elie, love, live a little.”

 

And when Elie would only cross her arms, Damie would lean in, plush lips brushing against Elie's own, and murmur, a faint smirk on her lips, “Everyone loves music, Eliska. Especially the animals.”

 

But there was no music now, only a choking, stifling silence.

 

For hours, Elie sorts through Damie’s apartment, piling together circuit boards and notebooks. She draws the shades and opens all the windows before cleaning out the fridge. The bedroom she leaves for last. When she opens the door, she finds the sheets are still rumpled on both sides of the bed. The day before Damie was taken, Elie had slept over. They had bathed together before bed and Elie had woken to the soft sounds of Damie’s jazz murmuring from the speakers. With a breath, she starts opening drawers. She makes three piles: what she’ll keep, what she’ll donate, and what she’ll throw away.

 

When she opens one of the drawers by the bedside table she finds a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Picking it up, she flicks it open, and finds half of them gone. She doesn’t try to fight her smile or the tears that accompany it. Somewhere in her game, Damie had picked up the habit of smoking and failed to discard it. Last year, Elie had persuaded her to quit and, for the most part, she did. Though Elie had a sneaking suspicion Damie still sneaked a cigarette here and there.

 

Grabbing a small crystal bowl from the kitchen Elie walks to the big open window in the living room. She sits on the ledge, looks at the darkened storefronts below, taps out a cigarette, and lights it. Sometimes, Damie’s acquired habits rubbed off on Elie.

 

A cool breeze blows in.

 

Elie grabs a nearby blanket and throws it over her shoulders. She glances up, counting the few scattered stars in the sky. It had always bothered her, how much light pollution the city had. When they were in college, Damie had surprised her during one of their Spring Breaks with a trip to the Rockies in Colorado to go stargazing. Elie had been so amazed then, looking up at all the stars, so old and far away in the very depths of the universe, some already long dead.

 

She had asked Damie then, “Do you believe in heaven?”

 

And Damie had said, plain and simple, “No.”

 

Ever since she was a child, Elie's grandmother had told her about heaven, of how her parents were there now, watching over her. Back then, heaven had been a child’s comfort. “What do you think happens when we die, then?”

 

Damie had shrugged. “Nothing, we just die.”

 

“And you’re just okay with that?”

 

“Gotta be, there’s nothing else.”

 

Elie had looked up again, at all those stars. She knew there were billions. How couldn’t there be more, she had thought, how could death be the end when there’s still so much more out there?

 

“You don’t think you’ll come back or anything?” Elie had asked.

 

“Wouldn’t want to.” Damie had turned to her then, a smile in her eyes. “At least not without you.”

 

Elie smokes her cigarette down to the filter. Checking the time on her phone, she sees it’s 4:20am. In a couple of hours the sun will rise. Tightening the blanket around herself, Elie taps out another cigarette, and lights it.

 

*

 

 

Tony and Clint share the video feed with the others in the morning when they gather for breakfast. Today was Steve’s turn to cook and he had decided to prepare omelettes with everything in them, from spinach to tomatoes to corn. The result was the heaviest omelette Clint has ever eaten and a ransacked kitchen with cabinets open on all sides.

 

“Have you tried using the reflection from the other store windows to try and get a VIN number?” Bruce asks.

 

“Tried. I can barely see the bottom edge of the license plate as it is. Enhancing the image is useless,” Tony says, stabbing his eggs.

 

Clint is leaning into his omelette. He is exhausted. After waking to finding himself pinning Tony down, he’d stayed awake the rest of the night, too weary to fall back asleep. He’s caught Natasha staring at him throughout breakfast and has tried his hardest to avoid her gaze. The last thing he needs is her reporting to Fury he is unfit for duty. But he also knows he can’t continue like this either.

 

“At least we have a timeline,” Steve says.

 

“We’re late,” Natasha says. “Whatever they’re up to, they’ve been planning it for months.”

 

“Lady Natasha is right. It does not bode well for those in war to be late to battle,” Thor says.

 

Tony frowns, putting down his fork. “This isn’t a war, Thor.”

 

“Is it not? I am afraid it has all the markings of it, my friend,” Thor says. “Our enemy is unknown, their motives unclear, and they have already taken one of our own.”

 

Clint forgets who Thor is, sometimes, forgets he is a centuries old god-prince who has lived through more wars and fought more battles than they—in all their combined years—have. There are times when Clint wants to ask Thor how old he is, if he was there when it all began, if the Aesir are as old as time itself—if not older.

 

“Thor’s right,” Steve says, and Clint agrees. “There’s a war coming.” He turns to Tony. “I know you said you weren’t a soldier, but you’ve already fought one war already. We need to be ready to fight another one.”

 

Tony stares at Steve, lips disappearing into a thin line. After a moment, he turns his face away. “I don’t like this.”

 

“As it should be. War is not to be liked, my friend,” Thor says, his blue eyes solemn. “Only fools court war. And those who do court her, find she is naught but a fickle mistress. Selfish and cruel.”

 

Clint watches Natasha and remembers the days they courted violence, how some days they slept in clothes spattered with blood, blades in hand. The nights they had woken up to shots on the door and knifes to their throats. Once, years ago, a woman he had slept with asked him, “Why do you do it? You have talent. Why don’t you go straight?”

 

He had traced the knife wound on her bare breast, had circled the cigarette burn adorning her collarbone and said, “It’s all I know how to do. People like me weren’t meant for peace. It’s not in our blood, not in our DNA. It unsettles us.” 

 

He wonders if that’s still true. He remembers feeling unsettled a few weeks ago, an itch in his bones urging him to run. He remembers sparring with Natasha and needing to draw blood. Maybe, he thinks, it still is. As a mercenary, he had never stayed still for long. And habits are hard to break, after all. He wouldn’t know what to do with peace, as foreign a concept as it is.

 

A plate clatters, shaking Clint out of his thoughts.

 

“We need to prepare,” Natasha says. “We need to get ahead of them.”

 

Natasha’s eyes are narrowed in determination and her lips are pursed in focus. There’s a quiet fire in her eyes Clint doubts will ever truly expire. The last time Clint saw her like this, they were planning to take down the Red Room. She’d stood over the blueprints of a Red Room base in Slovakia and explained to Clint the movements of every guard, the timing between shift changes, where all the entrances and exits were placed, and what places were the best to plant explosives in order to bring the whole building down. She’d been merciless—they’d been merciless.

 

“How?” Bruce asks. “We don’t even know who they are.”

 

“No,” Tony says. “But we know Raza’s involved and so’s Red Room.” He points at himself, “I know Raza”—then points at Natasha—“and you know Red Room.”

 

“Their MOs will lead us to the who,” Steve agrees, and rises from the table with his empty plate.

 

As if on cue, they all stand, gathering their plates and cups.

 

“Sir, you have a visitor,” JARVIS announces, as they step into the kitchen.

 

“I’m not in,” Tony says, rinsing his plate.

 

“I believe you may want to reconsider, Sir.”

 

“JARVIS—”

 

“Tony, I swear to god if you don’t let me in—I know you’re in there.”

 

Tony almost drops the plate in his hands. “Elie?”

 

He motions with a hand and a screen materializes next to him. It shows the camera feed to the tower’s entrance. And there, facing the camera like she knows Tony is watching, stands Elie.

 

She looks regal, Clint thinks. “You better let her in, Tones.”

 

Tony smirks. “Let her up, JARVIS.”

 

They clean the kitchen in silence, though Clint can see Thor, Steve, and Bruce shooting furtive glances at Tony.

 

Elie steps into the kitchen and stops short. Her hair is wind blown and there are lines in her face Clint knew weren’t there yesterday. For a moment, he’s reminded of his mother. Tired, yet determined, still fierce. Elie, Clint realized, was the type of person who persevered, who survived the blows of the world, who got stronger because of them.

 

“Uh, I didn’t know you had company,” she says, fiddling with the bag strap slung across her chest. She gestures behind her, “I can wait, or come back later if—”

 

Tony smiles. “Nah, don’t worry about it. These fools can get by without me, well”—he glances at them—“maybe for a few minutes, I swear they always bug me about one thing or another. If it’s not weapons, it’s asking me how to work the universal remote control or how to change the room temperature or—”

 

“Ignore him, please.” Bruce chuckles and Tony scowls. Bruce says, “You must be Eliska. I’m Dr. Bruce Banner. I’m sorry for your loss.”

 

Elie gives Bruce a soft smile; Clint notes it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Elie, please, only my grandmother calls me Eliska. And thank you.”

 

At this Steve steps forward, introducing himself and offering his own condolences, grief in his own eyes. Elie blushes when she shakes his hand, but her voice is steady—if tired—when she thanks him.

 

She must know who all of them are. After all, it’s no secret they live with Tony. All the villains in the world know where to find them. Absently, Clint wonders if JARVIS filters their mail.

 

Natasha introduces herself and points over at Clint, introducing him as well. He and Natasha don’t offer condolences.

 

“You were there yesterday,” Elie says, glancing at both he and Natasha. She toys with her necklace. “Thank you, for telling me what happened.”

 

Both he and Natasha nod.

 

“So, mi casa es su casa and all that wonderful jazz,” Tony says. “What brings you here?”

 

Elie meets Tony’s eyes and Clint sees it again, that flash of his mother he saw when she walked in. He thinks they even have the same blue eyes.

 

“I want to help. I need to know what happened to her,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “I know her coding better than anyone here. I can help.” She takes a step forward, straightening her spine in a move that has Clint thinking of his mother, ever so brave, facing down her husband. “Let me help.”

 

*

 

Natasha attacks and Clint can only cede ground. They are sparring, basic hand-to-hand. Natasha kicks out again and this time he takes an extra step back than he needs to. Instead of blocking, he grabs hold of one foot and tugs. Natasha’s stance falters. For a second, Clint thinks he’s gained the advantage, but Natasha proves too fluid. She adds force to the foot trapped in his hands, forcing his hands to shift their hold. Using his hands as a brief foothold she manages to push herself forward and up, wrapping her thighs around his throat.

 

She brings them down with her momentum, but Clint grabs hold of her. He loosens her hold and drags her down across the mat, hands wrapped around ankles when she kicks out, clipping him in the face. There’s blood in his eye.

 

“Get up. We’re not done,” she says. Her hair is falling out of her bun. A bruise blooming on the side of her jaw.

 

Clint pulls himself to his feet, a hand pressing against the wound on his head. They have been training going on two hours now. But Clint doesn’t question it. Like Thor said, they are at war. And the last time they went up against the Red Room, they almost didn’t come back. He wipes the blood off his face and hand. Bending his knees, he gets into stance. 

 

For a moment, Natasha stares at him, eyes traveling from his feet up to his face. “Get your knife.”

 

He doesn’t hesitate to walk to his bag and pull out his combat knife. When he steps back onto the mat, Natasha is already there, flipping her knife in one hand.

 

They used to this a lot, before the Avengers, before SHIELD. Natasha has given him more knife scars than anyone else. It’s a strange comfort.

 

Natasha darts forward, knife aimed high. Clint blocks, twists, and slices her cheek. Natasha might be better at hand-to-hand, but give Clint a knife and he’ll get creative, find weak spots you didn’t know were there.

 

It’s a well-known dance between them that doesn’t end until they’ve both tumbled down, their blades at each other’s throats.

 

He forgets sometimes, how dangerous they are. SHIELD keeps them on a tight leash, letting them loose whenever they deem fit like pet beasts. There are times, few and far between, when Clint misses the days before SHIELD, when he adhered to no one’s rules but his own. He wonders where he would be now if it weren’t for SHIELD, if it weren’t for the Avengers.

 

He and Natasha are breathing deeply, their faces so close their noses are brushing and their breaths are mingling. Natasha pushes off him and grins, feral and wild. He matches it, rising to her his feet.

 

A moment later, they sit opposite each other on the mat, drinking water and cooling off.

 

“Who told you about Winter?” Clint asks, capping his bottle.

 

Natasha stares at him. “Vasily told me, though he’s going by Ilya now.”

 

Clint knows of Ilya. He was a man in the Red Room with Natasha. Ilya was in charge of training girls eight to twelve and was Natasha’s first brush with rebellion. Before he was a trainer, Ilya was a soldier, a spy, a sleeper agent. He was whatever the Red Room wanted him to be, but by the time Natasha met him, he was no more than a relic of a time gone past, a time before the Widows became the Soviet’s hidden pride and joy.

 

Clint may know of Ilya, but the last time he’d seen him, Ilya had shot him. Then again, Natasha had planned to kill him. So it goes.

 

“Sure we can trust him?”

 

“Yes,” Natasha says, wiping the blade of her knife.

 

“How can he be sure?” Clint asks.

 

“The idiot’s been in Russia the past few weeks,” she says. “He says he saw him. Across a rooftop when he was doing a job.”

 

Ilya, Clint knows, makes a living out of trading in secrets. The man is a veritable fount of information, aware of all the players and pieces on any chess board. Whenever someone pulls a job, Ilya, even half way round the world, knows about it. But Ilya, Clint knows, doesn’t take field jobs. At least, not anymore, not since the Red Room fell. 

 

“What was Ilya doing on a rooftop? Thought he retired.”

 

Natasha lays on her back and stretches her left leg up, straight in the air. Wrapping her fingers around her ankle, she pulls it close to her chest. Clint moves to mirror her.

 

“There’s been some unrest in Kazan,” she says, breathing out. “You know how Ilya gets about Kazan.” She releases her leg, and moves to stretch out her right.

 

Clint pulls his right leg towards himself and relishes in the stretch. “Downright paranoid, the bastard.”

 

Natasha lowers her leg. Still on her back, she pushes off from the ground, creating a bridge with her body. “The Middle East has become a blackhole of information. He’s worried.”

 

Clint mirrors Natasha’s bridge, feeling his spine curve like the string of his bow. He thinks this is her (un)subtle attempt of letting him know they should pick up yoga. Through his eyes the gym is upside down, reminding Clint of his days in the circus, of the time he stole a contortionist’s aerial silk, and ended up tangled up, fifty feet in the air, spinning upside down. He’d been so tangled his brother had to climb up and cut him down.

 

“If the Middle East is the problem, what’s he doing in Kazan?”

 

“Apparently there were news some old friends were in the city,” she says, lowering herself to the mat. “He thought it would be best to check it out.”

 

“He thinks they’re related?” When Clint brings himself back down to the mat, he has to suppress a groan. His muscles feel fluid, loose, and relaxed.

 

Natasha sits up, looking down at Clint. “Yes.”

 

When Ilya gets a hunch, he’s usually right. The man, Clint thinks, must have some sort of sixth sense. It’s eerie, really, the man’s uncanny ability to read the world around him, to understand the causes and effects of their lives.

 

“Has he said anything else?”

 

Natasha shakes her head. “He’ll monitor the situation from his end.”

 

Clint lays on the mat, staring at the ceiling beams, taking slow, deep breaths.

 

“You haven’t slept in your own bed these past few nights,” Natasha says.

 

“I haven’t been sleeping in Tony’s bed, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, shifting to his side to face her.

 

Natasha stares at him, unimpressed. He rolls his eyes. “We were working last night.”

 

“What about the nights before then?”

 

Clint throws his hands up. “Come on, Nat. I was doing what you all told me to do. I kept Tony from drinking himself to death. There’s nothing going on.”

 

“But you wish there was.”

 

Laying back down, he stares at the ceiling beams again. There’s a suspicion running through his mind that Tony put them there on purpose. For him. Because Tony knows he likes perching on high places where he can see the full world below and he knows he prefers local honey to the name brands and that he likes open spaces because too many walls make him feel stifled and trapped. Tony knows about Clint’s nightmares, has had Clint’s body pin him to the ground, and had been the one to apologize. He had been the one who drew him out of his self imposed isolation, who gave him sleeping pills when he realized Clint wasn’t sleeping, all the while admitting his own nightmares.

 

Clint thinks about the calm he feels in Tony’s workshop, despite all the chaos the area imbues. But Tony is getting over Pepper. And the man can have whoever he wants and deserves better than someone who has the blood of friends on his hands. Better than someone who used to be a killer for hire, and, in a sense, still is. Tony deserves someone without an unbalanced ledger written in red.

 

Clint gets up, grabbing his workout gear. “Doesn’t matter.” 

 

*

 

“What do you mean someone saw you?” Rumlow asks, fists clenched.

 

They left Kandahar days ago and are now in Russia, much to Trickshot’s discomfort. Compared to Kandahar, Kazan is a quiet city, but it has a seedy underbelly where the criminal underclass gathers round to gossip and trade. He isn’t sure why they are there, doesn’t know if it’s for a who or a what, but he knows Kazan is a centralized hub of information. And in a country that used to house the largest spy network, information is a currency like no other.

 

Trickshot watches as Winter stills and his eyes go distant, unfocused. Winter does this, Trickshot knows, he stops and stares somewhere deep within, as if straining to see something trapped inside himself only he can see. Sometimes, when Trickshot looks at him, he thinks Winter himself is what’s trapped inside his own body, that it’s himself who he’s looking for, but then the man will blink awareness back into his eyes and Trickshot will be left wondering.

 

“There was a man,” Winter says. He sounds confused, unsure of who or what he saw. “Across the roof. He had a shot on me…but he didn’t take it. I think he knew me.” His eyes focus and he looks at Rumlow, as if waiting for the man to explain something to him.

 

“Oh, hell,” Rumlow says and moves to stand beside the window of their hotel room. Pulling the shade aside, he examines the area outside.

 

“Anything?” Trickshot asks, muscles tensed as coiled springs. If it’s one thing he’s learned over the years, is when to retreat, to pull back and reassess.

 

“No,” Rumlow murmurs, still looking outside. He pulls back and says, “We’ll stay until we get what we need.” He eyes Winter. “You’re grounded until we’re done. Protocol X. There are civilian clothes in the bottom of your bag.”

 

Winter nods and goes to the room where the bags are laid out.

 

“What are we here for?” Trickshot asks Rumlow.

 

“Information,” Rumlow says. He jerks his chin towards the room. “Now go and make sure Winter hid that arm of his.”

 

Trickshot nods and walks into the room. Winter is wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, his wild hair framing his face. For the first time since meeting him, Winter looks like a civilian, if a battered one at that.

 

“Here,” Trickshot says, rummaging through his own bag and pulling out a blue hoodie, “this will cover your arm.”

 

Winter grabs the hoodie, but doesn’t move to put it on. Instead, he stares at his metal arm, turning his hand before his eyes.

 

Trickshot has never before seen a prosthetic this advanced. He doubts it’s one average doctors even know about.

 

“How’d you manage to get an arm like that, anyway?”

 

Winter’s eyes go distant again, like the still blue waters of a pond whose surface is covered by mist. “I don’t remember,” he says.

 

“How can you not—”

 

“You two done in here?” Rumlow asks, leaning against the doorway, staring at Winter.

 

Trickshot backs away and nods to Rumlow at the door. He understands the hidden warning and he will heed it. But still, he wonders. Winter, Trickshot realizes, is what his mother would have called a troubled soul, lost and misdirected.

 

Glancing back, he notes the gun tucked in Rumlow’s back. He doesn’t think it has left its place since they were in Kandahar, possibly since before he ever arrived. He isn’t sure what to make of it, considering the ever present knife in his own boot.

 

*

 

Elie wanders the workshop, bright eyes scanning every nook and cranny, hands hovering over strewn about tech as if unsure whether or not she can touch. Tony watches from the sidelines and doesn’t say a word. He can’t help but think of Damie, of the way she had stared the first time she saw the inside of his workshop, back when he still lived in Malibu. Back then, she had turned to him, her eyes bright, and said with a grin, “If there’s a heaven, this is what mine is going to look like.”

 

Back then, Tony had laughed, made some joke he can no longer remember.

 

Now, he just feels tired and sad. He feels as if he failed Damie somehow, and, when he really thinks about it, he supposes he has. Making Pepper CEO distanced him not only from the company, but its employees. Tony hadn’t seen Damie is nearly a year, only a scant few times after her graduation and subsequent employment. But Elie is here now, and he won’t let her down. That is a promise he can keep.

 

“Damie wrote this,” he hears Elie murmur.

 

Tony walks up to her and finds she is holding one of his tablets, scrolling through a stream of code. He glances at the lines and, with a surprised jolt, remembers what they are. Resisting the urge to snatch the tablet from Elie's hands, he turns to her instead. “Are you sure?”

 

Elie nods. “Positive. Damie had a thing for signing whatever project she worked on.” She zooms in on a line and tilts the tablet toward Tony. “See?”

 

And there it is, nestled in between a string of numbered code: <!- -32643- ->

 

He sinks down into the nearest chair. He should have known, but the truth is he hadn’t put two and two together, had never thought Damie might have done it. Because Damie, for all her faults, was fundamentally good.

 

“Shit.”

 

Elie turns around and looks at him, concern in her eyes. She glances at the tablet in her hand, looks back at him. He can see her putting together what he should have seen hours ago.

 

“Whoever took her,” she says, taking a deep breath, “made her write this.”

 

“Looks that way, yes.”

 

“What else did they make her do?” she whispers.

 

Tony shakes his head. “I’m not sure. But that code was found in SHIELD’s servers after they got hacked. Smart, but dumb if you ask me. No way that code would have gone unnoticed for long…” Tony stops, a thought occurring to him. Damie was resourceful, always had been. “Maybe that was the point.”

 

“What?” Elie asks.

 

Tony stands, motioning to Elie to pass him the tablet. He finds Damie’s signature and reads the line it is embedded in. If only they had seen all this sooner, maybe Damie would have still been alive.

 

“Tony?”

 

“Think about it,” he says, drawing his thoughts to focus. “Damie gets taken and then, within the same month, SHIELD gets hacked. That’s no coincidence. And this is Damie we’re talking about. When has she ever rolled over for anybody? Really?”

 

Elie chuckles, “You have a point there. So they made her hack SHIELD. And she left an obvious backdoor for us to find.”

 

“Christ, she even signed her name,” Tony says, running a hand through his hair.

 

“Maybe that isn’t all she left us,” Elie says.

 

“What are you thinking?”

 

“Damie had this thing she’d do when we were younger. She’d kinda borrow from people, their gestures, their demeanor, just the way they did anything. Anyway, when she started coding, she did the same thing.” Elie gestures at the table in his hands. “That’s how she got into signing her code. She saw someone do it, liked it, then did it herself. Before she settled on the numbers, she used an internet name, before that it was a phrase. In high school, when she started hacking, I remember her telling me about this guy she met online. He hid code in his code.”

 

“You think she did the same thing when she wrote this?”

 

“Like you said, Damie never rolled over for anybody. But she was good at making people think she had.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos, comments, and critiques are very much appreciated. I love to know your thoughts! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. *The last chapter has been edited. "Eli" was actually supposed to be "Elie." Whoops. In my defense, English is technically my second language XD


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Debt no longer holds them together. Clint thought Natasha understood that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! Honestly, if you’re still reading this story I can’t thank you enough. Simply put, you’re amazing. Thank you to everyone who has left kudos, and especially to those who have commented. They keep me going :) 
> 
> Chapter beta’d by Cheerfuldisposition. You should all thank her, without her none of this would be seeing the light of your laptop/phone screen.
> 
> So, without further ado, here it is.

“It’s been seven hours, Tony,” Clint says. His eyes are dry from staring at bright monitors for so long; they water and sting when he blinks them several times. “Staring at this for another seven isn’t going to change what we see. Or don’t.”

 

Beside him, Tony puts his head down and groans. He runs his fingers through his hair, disheveling it even more. Last night, Tony called him after Eliska had figured out the code used to hack into SHIELD was written by Damienne. Eliska suggested Damienne had left a hidden message behind, but—seven hours later—they had yet to find such a message. A part of Clint thinks they are chasing shadows, that they are being too hopeful, putting their eggs in one basket because answers have been few and far between. If Damienne did leave a coded message behind, it wasn’t any code Clint can decipher.

 

Clint leans back against his seat. The letters and numbers on the screen before him have blurred. His back, neck, and shoulders are sore and stiff from sitting in the same position for too long. To the left of him, in a corner of the lab, Eliska is sleeping on a well-worn red sofa with a quilt covering her. She sleeps curled up in the fetal position, her face pressed against the couch cushions. Her back is to them. Tony had offered her a guest bedroom that she had refused with a frown and a sleepy, “I wanna be here in case you guys find somethin’.”

 

“Tony,” Clint says, “time for a break.”

 

“Kitchen. Coffee,” Tony mumbles around a drawn out yawn.

 

A brief glance at a monitor’s clock shows it’s 2:45am. They make their way out of the lab, their footsteps sounding loud in the silent night. Clint resigns himself to another night of short-lived sleep. For a second, he muses. If he hides from Natasha and escapes their sparring session, he can catch a quick nap. Besides, he’s still recovering from their last session. The scab on his eyebrow is a crisp reminder.

 

The kitchen lights come to life as they enter. They are faint, providing only enough light to prevent he and Tony from bumping into anything. Tony walks towards the coffee machine, while Clint heads to the pantry to put out bread and the to the fridge for bacon, ham, cheese, and eggs. He can’t remember the last time he ate. If he can’t, then Tony doesn’t know when he himself ate either. After taking out a pan and lighting the stove, he settles himself to make breakfast sandwiches.

 

Beside him, Tony leans against the counter. He’s holding two mugs of steaming coffee and when he looks down at the stove to see two of everything, he glances back at Clint, an eyebrow arched. Clint shrugs. Somewhere along the way he began feeding Tony too. Tony’s lips pull at the corners and he hands over Clint’s purple mug. Their fingers brush. Clint tightens his grip on the spatula in his other hand and forces himself to focus on the eggs cooking in the pan. He sips his coffee and burns his tongue. Tony laughs, hands wrapped around his own hot mug.

 

Silence descends on them, but it is comforting, unperturbed in its lack of demand to be filled. Being with Tony is easy. There are times, when Clint is silent and inimical to speech, when Tony will fill the silence, will chatter about everything and nothing under the sun, will recite the schematics for a certain project, and all Clint will do is listen, feeling the restlessness in his bones slowly seep out with each word. But there are other times that are like this: quiet, simple, unobtrusive. Peaceful. There are times when Tony will sit with Clint and watch TV or pull out a tablet to work, all the while without uttering a word.

 

Clint sneaks a glance at Tony from his peripheral. Tony is perched atop the counter to Clint’s right, staring at his mug, lost in thought. Clint nudges Tony’s thigh with an elbow.

 

“Food’s prepared there, you know,” he says, reaching beside Tony for the bacon pack he laid there a few minutes ago.

 

Clint tosses the bacon in a pan, watches it sizzle for a moment. All the while, Tony continues staring at his coffee—silent and unmoving. The sight is unnerving. Clint is no stranger to Tony’s silence, but he is to his stillness. Tony is a fidgeter, a constant tapper of fingers and twirler of pens. Clint researched it once, booted his laptop and found some theory about fidgeting being the body’s way of adapting to the lack of movement in this new post-hunter-gatherer day and age. It seems Tony’s always been like that, an energetic being in a sea of static. Except for now, that is.

 

“She won a scholarship,” Tony says, his voice rough as if he’d swallowed sandpaper. For a second, Clint wonders who he’s talking about. But then he understands: Damienne. “That’s how I met her. She won one of my scholarship awards when she was at MIT. July 20th, summer of ’07.”

 

Clint doesn’t know what he should say. In the summer of 2007, while Tony stood on a podium and presented a scholarship, Clint was putting a bullet in between the eyes of a man in East Timor. Clint stands a little closer to Tony, bump’s Tony’s dangling legs with his hip. _You can tell me,_ he doesn’t say. Instead, Clint grabs two plates from the cabinet to his left.

 

Tony takes a breath. “I flew in. Presented her the award. Never seen anyone trying to act so nonchalant and so damn excited at the same time.” He snickers. “Damn near lost her mind when I showed her the Malibu lab. Got Dummy to play fetch with her the first hour she was there. Odd one, Damienne.”

 

“What’d she win it for?”

 

“New encryption she’d been toying with. Still in the nascent stage, but what I saw impressed me. There was potential,” Tony says with a shrug. “Pepper said I gave her the award because she was a younger version of me.”

 

Clint places their breakfast on two plates and moves to turn off the stove. “Was she?”

 

“God, no,” Tony says, barking out a laugh. “Granted Damie had a bit of a wild streak. I only remember bits and pieces of that celebratory weekend. But Damie, she wasn’t a younger me. Good thing, too.”

 

During the slow days at the circus, Clint would often filch through garbage cans and read the magazines he found. Back then it seemed most magazine covers were racy and decadent news articles detailing a young Tony Stark’s exploits. From liquor to cocaine to risqué sex scandals; the man had been America’s favorite wild child. The first time Tony got admitted to rehab it had been as though football season had started. The press had been relentless. When Tony got out, Clint remembers the circus managers and crew placing bets on how long Tony’s sobriety would last. A month in, a reporter brazenly questioned his recent sobriety. In ten minutes, a twenty-year-old Tony Stark exposed the man’s gambling debts on national television.

 

It had been hilarious. Clint bites the inside of his cheek to keep the giggle building in his throat back. Tony had thick skin, but Clint knew he sewed it out of necessity.

 

“Don’t think the world could handle another Tony Stark,” Clint says.

 

Tony hops down from the counter and smiles, his eyes bright with mischief. “Right on that count, Legolas.”

 

Clint places both plates on the counter where they each pull out a stool. They descend into their familiar silence as they eat. His thoughts drift to Eliska, or Elie, as she had insisted he call her. She had stayed awake until she began to sway on her feet, trying to help them find whatever hidden message Damienne left behind. Clint marvels at the loyalty there. Even dead, Damienne still inspires it.

 

“How was she different?” Clint says.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Damienne. What didn’t make her a younger version of you?”

 

Tony stops eating and sips his coffee. The faraway look is back again. A few minutes pass in silence, with only the sound of them sipping their coffees fracturing the quiet. Finally, Tony puts his empty mug down and gets up from his stool. He grabs their plates, setting them in the sink. He grabs the pot of coffee and refills their mugs. Standing directly across from Clint, Tony doesn’t look at him when he says, “Damienne was brilliant, but she wasn’t burdened by it. She went to MIT when she was supposed to and graduated when she was supposed to. She was brilliant, but she was normal.”

 

Clint thinks back to that studio loft they walked into, with all the tech strewn everywhere, he thinks about someone who only had her job and a girlfriend to report her missing, who was abducted and killed by a terrorist organization, but left a trail behind. Is anyone normal? Or is normality a fiction, a pretty little idea humans got in their heads to feel better about who they were, a fictional measuring point of something indefinable?

 

***

 

In the morning, the rest of the team debriefs over breakfast. Bruce is cooking something that looks like a pancake, but isn’t. He calls it dosa.

 

“It’s basically a South Indian crepe,” Bruce says, taking out some type of batter.

 

Clint has learned not to question Bruce’s cooking, not after he made an amazing curry for dinner one night.

 

Tony isn’t at breakfast. Clint supposes he’s still asleep. He doesn’t know whether or not Tony went back to the lab after their late night (or morning) breakfast. Clint couldn’t handle the thought of another night spent in one of the chairs in Tony’s lab and decided to sleep in his own bed for a change. He managed four hours. Progress.

 

“What do we know?” Steve says. He’s standing by the kitchen bar, on the outskirts, surveying them all. He doesn’t look as tired as he used to. There’s a mission now, a target they have and Clint knows how good a motivator that can be, knows that if there’s anything left to cling to, there’s always that. He wishes Steve had more.

 

“We know a former Red Room operative and the Ten Rings have a working partnership—for now at least. We know they’re using the Winter Soldier, that they’re after the Chitauri weapons, that they want Tony,” Natasha says. She’s sitting beside Clint on a stool, the same one Tony sat on only a few hours ago.

 

“They forced Damie to hack SHIELD,” Elie says from her spot on the table. Her hands are wrapped around a mug of coffee. She’s dressed in fresh clothes. Clint doesn’t think she went home at any point last night, which means she brought clothes with her. Again, he’s reminded of his mother who always carried an extra shirt for Clint in her purse. He was a messy eater as a child, never failing to drop food on his shirt when they ate out.

 

Steve runs a hand through his hair. It’s grown out since the Battle of New York. Longer on the sides, the front falling into his eyes a bit. Clint feels his frustration. They don’t know enough. What they need is a location.

 

They’re fighting an enemy they can’t see and it’s making them all unsettled. Thor has taken to wearing his armor around the tower, even now he sits at the kitchen table with his hammer beside him. Natasha dragged Clint around the tower floors, asking JARVIS for their layouts. There’s now more than one weapon stashed in every room, including bathrooms and hallways. Clint even taped a knife to the backside of a Jackson Pollock that hung in the middle of the lobby. Excessive, he knows, but paranoia has saved their life more than once.

 

“Clint and I need to go to Kazan,” Natasha says. “Think we may have a lead.”

 

Ilya is in Kazan. And the lead is the Winter Soldier. Natasha hasn’t mentioned going to Kazan to Clint, but he isn’t surprised and he isn’t going to stay behind. Wherever she goes, he goes. One of their unspoken rules.

 

“What’s exactly in Kazan?” Steve says.

 

Natasha purses her lips. She wants to go after the Winter Soldier, but doesn’t want them to know. Clint isn’t sure why, but he can take a guess. There’s a history there, unbeknownst to Clint and the others.

 

“The Winter Soldier, Steve,” Tony says, striding in. He glances at Natasha, his eyes clear and alert despite his lack of sleep. “Right? I mean, come on, genius here, remember. Isn’t it obvious? Someone told her he was back, so she’s going after him.”

 

“No,” Steve says.

 

“Steve—“ Natasha starts.

 

“If the rumors about this guy are true, he’s too dangerous,” Steve says, shaking his head. His voice has the authoritative cadence Clint heard during the invasion. Here is the man who led a group of soldiers across the trenches of Europe, who awoke decades after having been frozen in Arctic ice and didn’t hesitate to fight another battle. Here is the man whose final word was law.

 

Tony moves to the coffee maker and pours himself a cup as if it were any other morning. “Don’t blame her, Cap. If I were her, I’d wanna go after my former partner in crime too.”

 

“Tony,” Bruce sighs. He’s flipping a perfectly round dosa. There’s already a golden stack of them in a corner on a plate.

 

“No, come on, Bruce. We’re already dealing with enough cryptic messages and secrets as it is. I read those files you gave, so I know. Either you tell them or I do. So come on, Red, spill,” Tony says, standing opposite Natasha, staring her down.

 

Natasha hadn’t told Clint much about the weeks she spent pretending to be Tony’s assistant. But he knows she made a mistake. Tony may understand her deceit, may even forgive it, but he’ll never forget it.

 

“Natasha,” Steve says. It’s not an order, but a request.

 

She stares at Steve for a while, searching for something. Steve doesn’t look away and that seems to satisfy her.

 

“The Red Room had a training program,” she says, speaking slowly, choosing her words with care. “There were instructors.”

 

“He trained you,” Clint says.

 

She nods. “Ages twelve to sixteen,” she murmurs.

 

“They made you partners,” Clint says.

 

She nods again.

 

“That job in São Paulo,“ he says, the mission, Phil had said, that caused SHIELD to notice her in the first place, “the hospital—”

 

“He was my partner. Took out the guards while I set the charges,” she says, her voice without inflection, blank. “I broke out of the Red Room a few months later.”

 

“So you know what he looks like,” Tony says. The knuckles around his mug are white, but his expression is neutral. Clint is grateful.

 

“No,” Natasha says. “He always wore a mask.”

 

“Great, back to square one then,” Tony says.

 

“I think his eyes were blue,” she says, the memory clouding over her eyes.

 

They’re all staring at her. Clint knows the others will research São Paulo now, will learn about the hospital. Steve will ask Fury about Natasha’s time before SHIELD and maybe Fury will give him the paper files he keeps of those missions, those folders filled with more speculations than hard facts. It was bad enough, the things they’ve already done for SHIELD. Part of Clint wishes Steve never asks.

 

“Could you bring him in,” Steve says, “if you went to Kazan?”

 

“I don’t know. Chances are he won’t recognize me. We never remembered each other, after,” she says.

 

There’s a scar on Natasha’s abdomen, below her belly button, above her pelvic bone, and to the left. Its raggedness suggests a serrated blade. Clint saw it for the first time when he was stitching up her side after they assaulted their third Red Room base.

 

“I don’t really remember getting it,” she had said when she caught him staring.

 

When he finished, she pulled a tank top on and finished off the bottle of rum they filched from the liquor store a half a block away from their motel. He hadn’t given it much thought at the time. It wasn’t until months later that he’d begin to put the pieces together and realized they had done more than make her into a killer.

 

“By the way,” Tony says, as he turns his back to them and serves himself one of the dosas, “I figured out Damie’s message.”

 

“What?” Elie says. “What did she—“

 

“Coordinates. Satellite photos showed an abandoned industrial district in Kandahar.” Tony cuts up his dosa and dips it in some sort of red sauce. “Was actually owned by Americans. Proud to say it wasn’t owned by SI. But still, gotta enjoy the ironies of life, right?”

 

No, Clint thinks, no, you don’t.

 

“You inform Fury?” Steve says.

 

“Nope. Figured I’d let you do the honors, Cap,” Tony says, a strained smile on his face.

 

Steve nods. “Breakfast first. Everyone be ready to leave in an hour.”

 

Tony throws Steve a jaunty salute and heads for the elevator with his plate. Steve and Natasha glance at Clint.

 

“Don’t look at me,” he says.

 

Natasha kicks his shin.

 

“Fuckin’ hell, Nat.” His shin throbs.

 

“You should go talk to him,” Bruce says, setting a breakfast plate in front of Natasha. “He listens to you.”

 

***

 

It is windy outside the tower. Storm clouds are gathering and Bruce wonders how long they have until the first rain falls. Even this high up, on the common room’s terrace, the air smells of saw dust and wet cement. It smells of recovery.

 

At the railing, stands Thor, the attire of a prince and the drooped shoulders of a world wearied man. Bruce saw him slip out of the kitchen earlier and decided to follow once he finished cooking. He tended to lose his appetite after, the haphazard of being the chef he supposes.

 

“This must all seem so petty to you,” Bruce says.

 

“Aye, many an Aesir would believe Midgardian squabbles were naught but so,” Thor says. He’s been outside for some time now, Bruce knows, standing, peering at the sky, at the gathering clouds. Thor must miss his home, Bruce musses, wherever that is. A far, distant realm. He’s still trying to wrap his head around that.

 

Thunder cracks.

 

Mjölnir hangs limp and heavy from Thor’s waist. Distantly, Bruce wonders if the weather is an outward expression of Thor’s inner turmoil, if the reaction is uncontrollable. What must it be like to release your emotions into the sky? Bruce imagines his anger turning the sky a hot, fiery orange red, his anger a desert storm. He can’t decide if its cathartic or not.

 

“And what do you believe?” Bruce says.

 

Clouds have shrouded the sun. The wind picks up and, by a degree, the air chills.

 

Thor turns towards him. Where he expected to find the wisdom of a long-lived life, he finds something else. He thinks it might be grief or regret. Whatever it is, he can now see the weariness Thor has worn into his bones.

 

“There will always be those who seek power at the expense of others.” Thor turns away, his face upturned to the once blue sky. “If my travels have me taught me anything, it is that across the realm that desire remains unchanged. For a life long such as mine, the trivialities of Midgardians should be petty, yet I find them not. On the contrary, your realm rather astounds me Dr. Banner.”

 

Bruce wants to ask Thor about his travels, about the things he’s seen. He wants to ask where the other realms are, wants to take him down into his lab and ask him to open up an intergalactic portal so Bruce can sit and measure its energy signature. He hadn’t dismissed the possibility of life on a planet outside of their own. He just hadn’t imagined meeting such life.

 

“Have you seen them all, all of the realms?” he says.

 

“It is Aesir tradition that when a Prince become a man, he shall travel all nine realms. I have. And I have waged war in them all.”

 

The day they sent Loki back to Asgard, Bruce almost didn’t stay. It was Tony who changed his mind. Tony assured him Ross wouldn’t be able to touch him, had been informed by Fury that SHIELD would keep the military off his back. Running was no longer a necessity for survival. But the way Steve looked at them sometimes pressed a cold weight on his chest. He wasn’t a soldier. And despite the turmoil he carried inside himself, violence unnerved him.

 

He had even bought a plane ticket. In the end, the thought of returning to his previous life as if nothing had changed had been worse than the thought of staying. There was something to be explored here, he thought as he’d gotten into Tony’s car and they sped off.

 

And yet, he still couldn’t help but have a to-go bag ready, resting in a corner of his closet. Always ready to run.

 

Lighting flashes in the distance. The clouds have gotten closer, the sky darker. The blue sky of morning has gone.

 

***

 

Clint finds Tony in his penthouse standing by the bar, a tumbler of whiskey on the rocks in hand. His breakfast plate is on the bar, half a dosa left.

 

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready to march out?” Tony says. He swirls the golden liquid around, but doesn’t take a drink.

 

“Steve gave us an hour. ‘Sides, I haven’t had breakfast yet.” He grabs Tony’s plate and starts eating. The dosa is soft, still warm from the pan. Clint looks over at Tony; he’s still staring at his drink, but Clint sees the way the corner of his lips have curled a bit. He keeps eating, knows Tony will talk eventually.

 

“You were going to go,” Tony says.

 

Clint takes his time in chewing and swallowing his bite of dosa. “Go where?”

 

“With Natasha, to Kazan.” Tony faces him then. “Have you always been this reckless, Legolas?”

 

Phil used to call him out on his recklessness, punished him by hauling him into the med bay, and dropping a stack of paperwork on his lap to complete as soon as either hand was enough to write with. Despite countless times of making heedless decisions together, it didn’t take long for Natasha to catch onto Phil’s strategy. She was the one who handcuffed him to the hospital bed once. Still…

 

“I can take care of myself, Tony.”

 

“I’m not saying that you can’t.”

 

“Then what are you saying?” He may not have the super strength of a god or a serum enhanced super soldier, and he may not be the genius that Tony is, but he can still make a shot from a rooftop a block away and can still beat a person to death in less than three minutes.

 

“I’m saying that we’re like a team now, or whatever—“

 

“Yeah, and Natasha asked Steve. He didn’t say no.”

 

“No, because he wants to run it by Fury, who’s gonna send you both packing to Russia the first chance he gets,” Tony says, his voice rising at the end.

 

“Tony, this is my job. Nat and I are still SHIELD agents. What the hell did you think we were doing before all this?”

 

“Clint, I shook you awake yesterday and you pinned me to the floor.”

 

“What the hell does that have to do with following a lead?” Frustrated, Clint pushes the plate in front of him aside. Pinning Tony to the ground was instinct, _is_ instinct. Clint’s never handled being woken up well. Both Natasha and Phil had been on the receiving end of his rough awakenings. Though lately, ever since Loki, it has worsened. He still sleeps with either a knife or a loaded gun within arms reach.

 

“Sir,” JARVIS interrupts, “Captain Rogers has asked me to remind you to prepare for a SHIELD visit.”

 

“Thanks, Jay. Look,” Tony meets his eyes, holding his hands up, “forget I said anything.”

 

“Tony—“ Clint says, but before he can continue Tony walks away towards what Clint presumes is his bedroom. The whiskey tumbler is on the bar, the melting ice cubes turning the liquid a pale gold. Beside it is the breakfast plate, a few bites of dosa left.

 

“Fuck it,” Clint says and eats the rest before leaving to prepare.

 

***

 

 

This time, there is no clandestine warehouse and no SHIELD issued USV. This time, a Quinjet lands on the tower’s roof for them.

 

“Huh,” Tony says when it lands, “we should have one of our own.”

 

“Somehow I don’t see Fury letting us keep one,” Bruce says as they board. There are two SHIELD agents up front on the controls.

 

“Hey, no one said anything about asking. Besides, this model’s already old. I’ll make us a new one,” Tony says.

 

“Thought we just got this model,” Natasha says. She takes a seat and straps in.

 

Clint sits next to her. “We did. In January.”

 

None of them are in official uniform (except for Thor who’s in armor), though Steve still carries his shield and Tony holds a red and gold suitcase. Beside Clint, Natasha has dual Glock 26s, one on either thigh, and her Widow’s Bites peek out from the sleeves of her jacket. Bruce is a weapon all on his own.

 

For his part, Clint’s carrying his H&K P30—the same weapon he used to shoot at Fury and Hill when Loki possessed him. For a few days, he contemplated getting rid of it, maybe giving in to Natasha and buying a replacement Glock. But this is one of Clint’s favorite semi-automatic handguns. It has an ambidextrous mag release he loves and is easy on the recoil. Its grip is familiar. It was also a gift from Phil.

 

But Loki’s taken enough, Clint decided, and kept it.

 

Roughly a half hour later, they land. The Helicarrier isn’t up in the air, instead its on the water, about a hundred miles off the US eastern seaboard. It’s the first time he’s step foot here since he blew out one engine and sent a virus to destroy another.

 

The sounds are the same, is the first thing Clint notes. There are yells across the runways, people in navy blue uniform milling about. On the parallel runway, a fighter jet is being prepped for take off.

 

Dark clouds hover in the horizon. Clint takes a breath. The air tastes of salt water.

 

Fury and Hill meet them on the tarmac. They are lead inside. Clint passes sections that are sealed, admitting no entry. When they get in the elevator, certain floor numbers are highlighted red. A note explains they are undergoing construction and cannot be accessed without a pass. These must be the floors the Hulk and Thor tore through.

 

Inside the bowels of the ship, they sit in a standard, windowless conference room. Except for Fury and Hill, they all take seats at the oval table in the center.

 

“I hear we have a lead,” Fury says.

 

Steve eyes flicker to Natasha before settling on Fury. “We do.”

 

“The Winter Soldier’s back,” Natasha says before Steve can elaborate.

 

“Excuse me?” Fury says. “All the years SHIELD has operated we’ve never had a confirmed sighting and now you’re telling me you have one?”

 

Natasha tips her head. “Yes.”

 

“Sir, no agency has verified his existence,” Hill says.

 

“Are you sure?” Fury asks Natasha, his gaze piercing. He must have known, Clint realizes, about the history Natasha shares with Winter.

 

She takes a moment to respond, probably to contemplate what she knows about Ilya, measuring his trustworthiness.

 

“Yes,” she says.

 

“Where?” Fury says.

 

“Kazan. Spotted by an old acquaintance,” she says. And Clint knows then that Fury doesn’t know about Ilya.

 

Fury nods. His eye runs over Clint for a moment before settling back on Natasha. “Take Hawkeye with you. Do not engage. Recon only.”

 

“And if I have a shot?” Clint says.

 

“Take it,” Fury says.

 

“Sir,” Steve says, “I’m not comfortable sending either the Widow or Hawkeye out to pursue a highly dangerous target.”

 

“Too bad, Rogers,” Fury states.

 

“Sir, we don’t know anything about—“

 

“I believe Miss Romanoff knows her target better than anyone present,” Fury says.

 

“Sir, they are under my command,” Steve says, the frustration in his voice palpable.

 

“No,” Fury says, “they’re under mine. Don’t go forgetting the chain of command, Captain.”

 

Steve and Fury hold each other’s gazes. Clint’s sure Steve’s hands are fisted beneath the tables if the strained flex of his arms is any indication. Finally, Steve nods.

 

“Good. Now, anything else?” Fury says.

 

“Damienne was the one who hacked SHIELD’s network,” Tony says. “She left a message in the code, though, a set of coordinates. I checked them out and they’re to an abandoned, formerly owned US warehouse on the outskirts of Kandahar. Satellite footage hasn’t shown any activity in the area recently.”

 

“The rest of you check it out. Sweep the place for anything that may tell us who’s behind all this,” Fury says.

 

“Will the Afghani government know of our presence?” Bruce says.

 

“Yes,” Hill says. “Select officials will be notified, but we’ll be keeping the details sparse. Terrorist activity falls under the purview of the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement recently signed between them and us. They’ll keep their distance.”

 

“Okay,” Bruce says, “just making sure I won’t be detained when I get out of the plane.”

 

There used to be missions, milk runs really, that Fury and handlers gave to agents (oftentimes as punishment). They all centered on Bruce, on the Hulk. Agents would be dispatched for days or weeks at a time. First to track Bruce down and then to keep an eye on him, staying on his tail, noting down his movements. When the missions started, after reports of the Hulk had gone national, agents thought they were being sent to their deaths. Chasing someone who turned into an uncontrollable, unstoppable monsters? Yeah, that was a suicide mission, they all said.

 

Clint had been sent on the third such mission after Phil reprimanded him on cutting communications with the team. Bruce had taken up temporary residence in northern Guinea, living with various farmers in exchange for his doctoring. He never stayed in the main house, Clint recalls, always opting to stay in sheds a little ways away.

 

For all their quiet watching, Clint knew SHIELD was thinking of ways to eliminate the Hulk. And when no significant progress was made, they moved onto quarantine research. It’s ironic, then, that SHIELD is the only reason someone hasn’t come for Bruce yet. Though Clint wouldn’t put it past Tony to have a group of lawyers already working on Bruce’s protection.

 

“It’s settled then,” Fury says. “Romanov, Barton, you have seven days max. Dismissed.”

 

***

 

The afternoon sun comes in through the open curtains of his bedroom. It’s still a bit sparse, the walls bare of any poster or photographs. The room’s original design hasn’t changed much. The bed and dresser remain in the same spots; the bed sheets are one of five sets he found in the closet, the curtains are still the same. But the pile of clothes on the floor of his closet has spread, even if he hasn’t bothered hanging up his clothes. At least, he thinks, it no longer smells like an un-lived in hotel room.

 

It’s been months since he was sent on an overseas mission. A part of him is glad Fury overrode Steve. Staying stateside for weeks at a time still causes an itch to grow beneath his skin. After all the years traveling with the circus, his years as a freelancer, and his years with SHIELD, Clint is weary of staying in one place for long. These past few months have been a drastic change from when he bounced from city to city, country to country. The only constant the pernicious state of motel rooms the world over. And while SHIELD had provided him with a semblance of geographical stability—in that he had a permanent place to come back to—most of those days were spent beyond the border, sometimes in little known countries.

 

But then Phil’s voice in his ear was another type of stability. One he wasn’t getting now or ever again.

 

He packs his compact bow and numerous trick arrows. Arrows have always been his signature and it’s no secret he has ceased free lancing and is now under SHIELD’s employment. It’s no problem; the only person who knew his face and would have cared to track him down is long dead. The H&K P30 is tucked into its case and put within the bag as well, alongside several ammo clips.

 

He throws a few shirts, jeans, and jackets in too. From under the bathroom sink he grabs one of the many packaged toothbrushes and tosses it into the bag. Zips it shut.

 

The creak of the door makes him turn around.

 

“Does Stark know you’re purposefully rusting his door hinges?” Natasha says. She’s standing at the doorway, a dark green familiar go bag at her feet.

 

The day he moved in he’d taken out the pin of the hinge, cleaned it with Dawn and water. He’d then let it sit in potassium permanganate for a few hours before wiping it dry and settling it back in the hinge. Now the door groaned at the slightest touch.

 

“JARVIS?” Clint says.

 

“I have not found it necessary to brief Sir, Agent Barton,” JARVIS replied.

 

Clint shrugs. “Well, that answers that.”

 

“Here,”—she tosses him an envelope—“we’re flying commercial. Flight’s in three hours.”

 

“Just got done packing.”

 

He’s missing his sunglasses though. Thinking he’s last seen them atop the dresser, he starts rummaging through the papers and knifes he’s left on there. Every once in a while he checks the mirror and every time he finds Natasha staring at his back. She’s trying not to be obvious, but Clint has spent enough time around her to know. She’s not waiting; she’s hovering.

 

“You gonna tell me whatever it is?” he says, moving aside another request from SHIELD medical. Underneath is a postcard with an arrow on the cover. There was no sender, but his name was printed in clear blue ink. He remembered getting it a few days ago, surprised because he hadn’t gone through the trouble of changing his address and anyone who wanted to contact him was either at the Tower or could just as easily call him. In the end, he concluded it was a fan. It wasn’t exactly a secret they were all staying with Tony. Though the long loops of the “l” and “t” looked vaguely familiar.

 

Natasha’s boots are a whisper on the floor as she walks into his room. The mirror allows him to follow her every move. Clint wonders if she’s afraid. There’s something brittle around her eyes. Desperation, he thinks.

 

“Don’t take the shot,” Natasha says, coming to stand behind him.

 

“Nat—“

 

She meets his eyes in the mirror. “If you have the shot,” she says, a tremor in her voice he’s never heard before, “don’t take it. I’m cashing in your side of the ledger. Please, Clint. Don’t.”

 

The first time Clint officially met Natasha they bargained. The Red Room for his life. That debt had kept them together during a time when there was no trust between them. It was a language, a form of currency they intimately understood. But taking out the Red Room hadn’t been a matter of weeks or months. It had taken years. It was a time during which Clint learned that Natasha would stab the person sneaking from behind him, a time during which he repaid her by clearing her out of tight corners. Somehow, between the quiver of his bow and the silent strike of her knife, they forged something between them.

 

Debt no longer holds them together. Clint thought Natasha understood that.

 

“There is no ledger, Nat,” he says, clasping one of her wrists, “not between us. There hasn’t been one for a long time. You ask me not to take the shot. Done. Hell, I won’t even ask why.” Though he has his suspicions.

 

For a brief moment, she rests her forehead between his shoulder blades. “Thank you,” she says, her words a murmur. Clint tightens the grip on her wrist.

 

“Please tell me I’m interrupting something,” Tony says from the doorway.

 

“Not at all, Stark,” Natasha says, taking a step back.

 

Clint releases Natasha and turns around. Tony’s carrying a thick, long rectangular case with the SI logo.

 

“Good,” Tony says, “because I have spy toys designed by yours truly for the both of you for your little trip.”

 

Tony sets the briefcase on the bed, flips the clasps, and opens it. He pulls out a small box and throws it to Natasha who eyes Tony before opening it.

 

“Upgraded your Widows Bite,” Tony says. “I expanded the plate area of the capacitors, decreased the spacing between plates, and managed to use calcium copper titanate as a dielectric. In plebeian terms, I upped the voltage. Oh, and I made it so you can adjust voltage output. You can now produce currents up to 200milliampere, meaning your output spectrum ranges from unconscious to dead.” Natasha gives Tony a feral smile. “Yeah, figured you’d appreciate that.”

 

Natasha slips the Widows Bites on her wrists. When she powers them on the light is blue instead of red. She nods her thanks. Sometimes, Clint thinks Tony sleeps less than he himself does.

 

“And for you, dear Legolas,” Tony continues, pulling out a long black tube and handing it to Clint, “new arrows.”

 

There are several dozen arrows, some sporting different colors and labels. Clint pulls several of them out at random. One set is familiar: the arrowheads tipped a bright orange.

 

“Are these—”

 

“You guessed it: acid arrows,” Tony says. “And before you ask, yes, the arrowheads are detachable just like your other arrows. I put these together purely for aesthetic and showmanship reasons.”

 

Natasha laughs. “You really do bring the best toys, Tony.”

 

“I know right? Better than the shit SHIELD has given you,” Tony says. “Spoke to One-Eye, by the way. Ditch your commercial flight tickets. You guys are taking the jet. More private that way, and you can manage to bring all those weapons I know you two are so fond of.”

 

“Packing weapons has never stopped us from flying commercial, Tony,” Clint says.

 

“What, is there like Super Secret Spy School permission slips for carrying a bow and arrow and guns onto a plane?” Tony says.

 

Clint smiles. “There is actually. How else would government spy organizations get any work done?”

 

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or not. Whatever,” he says, waving a hand around. “Packed you some taser arrows in there too. Enough to send an average person—of both weight and height—into unconsciousness. You can’t fiddle with the voltage on those. I’m still trying to find a good way to do that. Damn arrows and their damn weight and balance restrictions. Seriously, Barton, why the medieval weaponry?” Tony moves back, leaning over the open case.

 

“He grew up in a circus,” Natasha quips.

 

“Nat!” Clint yells.

 

Tony whirls around. “Wait, seriously? That isn’t in your file.”

 

“And that’s my cue, gentlemen,” Natasha says. She hefts her go bag over her shoulder and walks out. “Don’t forget, three hours Clint!”

 

“Huh,” Tony says, “have I mentioned how ridiculously glad I am she’s no longer my PA?”

 

Clint grunts and tries to get his bag to zip shut after maneuvering in the tube of arrows. Really, he bets Natasha is just as glad as Tony, if not more so.

 

“So,” Tony says, lightly, “you grew up in a circus?”

 

“Bit of a clichéd story. Drunken abusive father beats mother to death and with no other family the kids fall into the system, going from foster home to foster home, until one day they run away,” he says, finally tugging the zipper shut.

 

Clint turns to find Tony starting.

 

“Yeah, okay, except the part where the kids end up at a circus? Definitely not clichéd,” Tony says.

 

After his mother died and his father was arrested, a social worker came and gave Clint and Barney each a black trash bag to pack their belongings in. That day, he thought his world was ending. And, in a sense, it had. That morning the air was stale inside the house, the harsh smell of chemicals burning his six-year-old nose. The social worker steered them away from the kitchen, but on his way back downstairs with his full bag trailing behind him he snuck a glance. The bottoms of the cabinets were still spattered with his mother’s blood.

 

In some ways, the circus had been better than their home. But in others, it had been worse, far worse.

 

Clint knows he’s impulsive. When he was little his mother used to say he flew by the seat of his pants and, though he didn’t understand what she meant at the time, she always said it with a smile, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. Now he does. But age hasn’t blunted him enough, hasn’t shaped him into a person who thinks twice over their every step, even if it should have.

 

“Guess growing up in a circus is a little unconventional,” he agrees.

 

“‘A little,’ he says. God, you’re ridiculous,” Tony says. “You know, I might just start keeping my own file on you.”

 

“Be my guest,” Clint says, thinking that this is how Tony shows his care, by gifting his creations and recording personal data.

 

“Oh, before I forget,” Tony says, taking a small case out of his pocket and handing it over, “here.”

 

Inside are two flesh colored comm units. Clint pulls one out. They feel lighter than their SHIELD comms. He presses against them and finds the silicone casing has more give.

 

“Try it on,” Tony says, and Clint does.

 

It molds to his ear, matching its every contour. Clint turns it on.

 

“Hello, Agent Barton. How may I be of assistance?” JARVIS says.

 

“Holy shit, you hooked our comms to JARVIS?” Clint says, grinning.

 

Tony beams. “Hell yeah. This way you and Romanov can report to the team. Don’t worry, SHIELD has access too. Even I know it wouldn’t be a good idea to block Fury and his minions from comms. They’re connected to the SI satellite, so no matter where you are you should be able to contact us and vice versa.”

 

Clint laughs. “He’d probably ask the council to sanction your murder.”

 

“Eh, I’m not worried. As long as I feed One-Eye’s tech obsession, he’ll keep me around.”

 

“Suppose you’re right,” Clint says.

 

He plucks the comm from his ear, places it back into the box, and pockets it.

 

“I made some for the whole team. You and Romanov get to be the guinea pigs,” Tony says, handing over another small case.

 

Clint forces both cases into his bag.

 

“Last thing,” Tony says. Apparently, the long case Tony set up on the bed has a bottom compartment. Inside is Clint’s L115A3 AWM rifle. “I finally finished modifying your scope.”

 

Clint picks up the detached scope. It feels faintly lighter. He faces one of the windows and sights it, incrementally increasing the zoom. There are people in the office of the building across from them. A blue mug rests on someone’s cubicle. There is debris in a corner, broken computer monitors, office chairs, and torn cubicle dividers.

 

“You increased the zoom range,” he says, putting the scope down.

 

Tony nods. “Also, changed the glass. This one’s more high quality.”

 

Clint places the scope back into its cut out spot within the case. “Thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

“About earlier…” Clint says.

 

“Yeah, no,” Tony says, waving his words away as he looked aside, “don’t worry about it.”

 

Normally, Clint doesn’t have to suffer through this. Trying to reassure someone he’s leaving behind for a mission is foreign. Even when he and Natasha went on separate missions together, there were never awkward goodbyes, or reassurances that needed to be issued. One day, one of them wouldn’t come back. They’d long ago made peace with that.

 

“We’ll check in three times a day: morning, afternoon, night.” Under SHIELD regulations they only had to check in once a day, but maybe the team (Tony) would appreciate more contact.

 

“You don’t have to—“

 

“Afternoon check-ins will be short since we’ll probably be out in the city. We’ll report if we find the Soldier and/or make contact. We’ll be back in seven days,” Clint said trying to sound as matter-a-fact as he could.

 

“We’ll let both of you know if we find anything in Kandahar.”

 

“Good.”

 

***

 

He’s pounding the heavy bag when she finds him, quick strong jabs that rattle the chain suspending the bag. At least this time his hands are wrapped. Tony must have figured out how to create heavy bags able to sustain serum-induced strength, Natasha thinks. That, or Steve is holding back. Her steps are loud when she approaches, boots tapping against the hard wood floor before she hits soft gym floor padding. Steve, she’s found, takes it worse than Tony does when people sneak up on him. It’s not even purposeful, her sneaking, it’s just that after graduating the Red Room she has to try at making a sound.

“I don’t like this,” Steve says. Sweat has caused his hair to tumble outside of its regular orderly style, now strands of it stick to his forehead.

 

“I know,” Natasha says, coming to stand beside him.

 

Steve doesn’t stop his assault on the bag. The rattling of the chain, Natasha muses, will make a suitable soundtrack for their conversation.

 

“We’re divided this way. And if something happens to you or Clint, we can’t—“ he spins and kicks at the bag. To Natasha’s surprise, it still holds.

 

“This is what Clint and I do, Steve. We’ve gone out to face worse with less.” Though never against someone as well trained as Winter. The last memory of him she has is that of a group of armored men leading him away. He’d never even looked back.

 

Steve punches the bag hard, causing it to sway wildly before he settles it with a hand. There are no heavy bags in a war zone. Natasha wonders how Steve used to vent his frustration or if he just let it fester.

 

He turns to her, eyebrow raised in a way that reminds her of Tony. “ See, that doesn’t exactly make me feel all that better.”

 

Natasha shrugs. “If it’s reassurance you want, Rogers, you’re talking to the wrong person.”

 

Without the chain rattling in the background, their voices seem louder.

 

Droplets of sweat fly through the air as Steve runs a hand through his hair. Still, Natasha spots the slight upturn at one corner of his lips. Steve ambles towards a bench and she follows.

 

“I looked up the hospital,” he says, taking a seat and unwrapping the tape from his knuckles. He’s not looking at her and Natasha wonders if he will ever deign to meet her eye again. “A lot of people died. Kids died.”

 

She allows herself, for a second, to close her eyes. When she opens them, Steve is peering up at her. “I know. I remember.” Because sometimes, if she was good, if she behaved, they did not secure her in cryo. And, sometimes, if her hands never hesitated or shook, they did not alter her memories.

 

Natasha remembers the São Paulo job because she did it with a clear head, of her own free will.

 

“I don’t”—he takes an unsteady breath—“I’m not accusing you.”

 

You should, Natasha wants to say, but there’s a stone in her throat she can’t swallow past. Natasha looks away, unable to stare at Steve’s clear, blue eyes. Before, outside of Clint, Phil, Fury, and Maria no one had known. While Clint’s blood count didn’t match hers, there’s still enough that she never feared he would look at her with disgust. Phil had placed a contract before her on the table and said her past was hers, and no matter of his. To Fury, she was an asset. Maria trusts Natasha to do her job, but still side eyes her whenever they are in a room together.

 

These people aren’t her family. Her blood family died long before memories of them could be formed. For years, she had Clint and then she had Phil. They had been enough, far more than she thought she deserved. Phil was dead and she almost lost Clint. She still had him, though, still had more than she deserved.

 

What Steve and the others think of her shouldn’t matter. They are not her family, are barely stumbling into being a team as it is. But she’s cooked with Bruce, exchanged quiet morning greetings with Steve, smiled at Thor’s enthusiasm over Midgardian cuisine (especially pop tarts), and became concerned after Tony’s fourth day in his workshop after his break up with Pepper. Without noticing, she had begun to care for these people, whom she may never consider family, but might one day consider friends.

 

“Your past,” Steve says, stepping into her line of sight, “whoever you were then, whoever they made you into, whatever you felt you had to do that doesn’t define you. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of, things we wish we could take back. Believe me, I know.”

 

Steve’s breathing is steady. Natasha meets his azure blue gaze, eyes that remind her of others that had once been bright with daring. And just like those eyes from her past, these don’t flinch from her stare. “So what does define me?”

 

“Every single choice you’ve made since the day you broke free.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of news: I graduated college!!! I’m now the proud owner of both a B.A. and B.S. (why, yes, it does stand for bullshit degree lol). Was I the only one who thought, “Okay, these are way smaller than I thought they would be,” when they held their degree for the first time? I guess it was a bit too much to expect some sort of majestic style poster length paper. 
> 
> I’ve also gotten a job, a regular, steady 7am-5pm gig. This means that updates will be coming faster. Unless something major happens, there shouldn’t be another update that takes 7months (I really am sorry about that). I’ve already got chapter 8 outlined. And since I no longer have school projects to worry about, the next chapter should be up sometime next month. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those authors who can update on a regular schedule; at least not when the story is a WIP. 
> 
> I hope you’ve enjoyed this chapter. Someone left me a comment saying they were far more interested in the interpersonal relationships within the team than the big Hydra plot, and, really, if you had to pick between one or the other to be interested in, Im glad they choose the team dynamics. This is, at its core, a story of the team as a group of people unexpectedly thrust together and who have to learn how to navigate each other. 
> 
> I’d love it if you left a comment with your thoughts :)


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